If we had known in 1998 that even if we had tried nothing more to prevent climate change there would be no warming for two decades, that ought to have changed very markedly the policy assessment. Almost no policy that would have no impact within five years is ever a good idea, because of the ways the future is discounted.

The second way adaptation is less risky is that we know relatively little about the effects of mitigation strategies and they may not work as expected or might even have perverse long-term effects. By adapting as and when we need to, we cut down on the risks of doing something counterproductive by accident or of simply wasting our time and money.

The last advantage of adaptation is that as we become richer our tastes and technology will change automatically. It is perfectly possible that we shall naturally find ways to change our behaviour that stop climate change in its tracks, or alternatively we may devise some clever way of cleaning up after our grandparents.

We’ve spent 25 years trying to prevent global warming, and have barely scratched the surface. In doing so we have spent untold billions and plan to spend countless more. One does not need to doubt that climate change is happening to doubt that this is the strategy we should stick to. Prevention is dead. Long live adaptation.

In conclusion; many investment theories are based upon global warming and climate change. I write about investment opportunities created by the EPA’s RFS2 all the time. Anytime the Federal Government directs almost unlimited resources at an industry there will be profits to be made, in fact the EPA’s RFS2 is intended to guarantee profits are to be made in certain industries. That is the whole purpose of the RIN market/mechanism. Investors however shouldn’t allow the profit opportunities to blind themselves from the fact that these investment opportunities are complete houses of cards that can disappear after a single election. The “science” that supports the man made climate change theories make a mockery of real science, and eventually the truth will be exposed. Climate change science is a modern day “Piltdown Man,” and represents the worst of science and the corrupting influence of political bias. Basing investment decisions upon junk science may not be a sound long-term investment strategy. Lastly, I encourage readers to forward this article to anyone that claims there is a “consensus” in the field of climate “science.” I’d appreciate getting some rebuttals to the challenges I’ve raised other than “there’s a consensus.” This article is an opportunity for people that truly believe in the “science” supporting the “consensus” conclusions to prove to the world that they understand and can defend the science, and that skeptics like myself are wrong. Please, people that write articles and recommend investments based upon the “science” of global warming, prove me wrong, I triple dog dare you. You owe it to the investment community to prove you know what you are talking about.

.

What is interesting to me is the ‘don’t just trust the experts.’ Consensus ‘expertise’ on complex problems is taking a deserved beating.

Where does that claim of 97 per cent consensus come from? Why do all the surveys arrive at the same figure?

and provides a good summary of this issue.

Reiner Grundman has a good post at Die Klimazweibel entitled Why do smart people disagree about facts? Grundman discusses and contrasts recent talks by social scientists Dan Kahan and David Victor. Summary statement:

Both Victor and Kahan point to an important issue. The issue is the role of scientific expertise in public affairs, and the social dynamics which ensue when risk issues are debated among scientists and the public at large is invited to comment (if only through opinion polls). The knee jerk assumptions of non-specialists in the field are not borne out by the facts, which means that progress on climate policy is not stalled primarily by contrarians, and more science education or information will do nothing to convince the public. Victor, the political scientist, shows how different forms of climate denial are over estimated while Kahan, the psychologist, shows that people actively seek information which fits the cultural group they belong to. No amount of ‘neutral’ information will change their views and campaigns of educating the public (through science or alarm) are futile. It looks as if those of us who want to see progress in climate policy need to focus their energy on different issues.

Second, under pressure from denialists we in the scientific community have spent too much time talking about consensus. That approach leads us down a path that, at the end, is fundamentally unscientific and might even make us more vulnerable to attack, including attack from our own. The most interesting advances in climate science concern areas where there is no consensus but the consequences for humanity are grave, such as the possibility of extreme catastrophic impacts. We should talk less about consensus and more about the consequences of being wrong—about the lower probability (or low consensus) but high consequence outcomes. Across a large number of climate impacts the tails on the distributions seem to be getting longer, and for policy makers that should be a call for more action, not less. But people don’t really understand that, and we in the scientific community haven’t helped much because we are focused on the consensus-prone medians rather than the tails.

The objective of science is to advance knowledge, primarily in two interlinked ways: circulating ideas, and defending or criticizing the ideas of others. Peer review acts as the gatekeeper to these mechanisms. Given the increasing concern surrounding the reproducibility of much published research1, it is critical to understand whether peer review is intrinsically susceptible to failure, or whether other extrinsic factors are responsible that distort scientists’ decisions. Here we show that even when scientists are motivated to promote the truth, their behaviour may be influenced, and even dominated, by information gleaned from their peers’ behaviour, rather than by their personal dispositions. This phenomenon, known as herding, subjects the scientific community to an inherent risk of converging on an incorrect answer and raises the possibility that, under certain conditions, science may not be self-correcting.

We should not have a climate-science research program that searches only for ways to confirm prevailing theories, and we should not honor government leaders, such as Secretary Kerry, who attack others for their inconvenient, fact-based views.

Roy Spencer strikes back against the ‘denier’ appellation with a post Time to push back against the global warming Nazis. Many knee-jerk objections to this from the usual suspects, but also from some reflective individuals. I agree that ‘Nazi’ is a bad idea, but I sympathize with the sentiments raised by McNider, Christy, and Spencer.

The name “climate parasites” performs two jobs with exactly two words. It derails completely the enemy’s position that our side consists of people who are totally ignorant of climate science, or choose to ignore it. We acknowledge without hesitation that climate change is a proven fact of nature. The name also, however, marginalizes the other side by putting its members into the same category as indulgence sellers and rainmakers: opportunistic frauds who preyed on superstition and natural disasters respectively to separate honest people from their money.

The point is this. The manufactured ‘consensus’ has led to this silly name calling. Taking David Victor’s analysis to heart might put climate science back on track and eliminate this pointless name calling.

JC note: I originally intended to have a section ‘Steyn vs Mann’, but there is so much this past week on the Mannian front that it deserves its own post. Stay tuned, I hope to have this up tomorrow.

Many knee-jerk objections to this from the usual suspects, but also from some reflective individuals. I agree that ‘N@zi’ is a bad idea, but I sympathize with the sentiments raised by McNider, Christy, and Spencer.

Well, there’s a shocker. I can’t even post Roy’s comments w/o modifying them to get past your moderation filter, but you sympathize with the sentiments that lead to his decision to call people N@zis as a principled response to such rhetoric as being called a “denier?”

Interesting that you don’t just advice Roy to put on his big boy pants.

You just can’t bring yourself to say that what Roy’s doing, like what Rud does or what Watts or what Steyn does, or what McKitrick does, etc., is just as much of the problem as what Mann does, can you Judith?

Didn’t you once say something to the effect that you were only concerned about that kind of vitriol if it came from climate scientists (in explanation for why McKitrick’s vitriol didn’t concern you)?

Consider that if you’re part of the problem you may not be maximizing your contributions to a solution.

”
Various scholars have tried to identify the impact of denialist chatter and events like the climategate email scandal, and some seem to find some links. But in my view what is going on has nothing to do with denialism. Instead, what we are seeing is what psychologists call “motivatedreasoning” —people hear about something they abhor and they find reasons to justify their dissent. Believing that the science is “uncertain” is one of those reasons.
”

It would also be interesting to read a comparative analysis and taxonomy of discourse from the other side of the great climate change debate divide. I suspect that the combination of the two types of analyses would lay out the sausage-making of motiva— reaso— in the climate ward quite nicely. As would reading the reactions, I would imagine, from both sides to the papers I linked as well as a companion analysis such as that I described.

Since Kerry seems to be the tipping point for the Nazi consideration that is where I will focus for this comment. I have not done an analysis to see if John Kerry’s views on climate align with those of the German Green Party yet, so I have no idea if he is worthy of the Nazi label but I would require specific characteristics shared between Nazis and Kerry before I would apply such a label to Kerry. Maybe the comparison exists but I have not seen it if it does.

To my way of thinking, Kerry’s tactic of presenting CO2 as being more destructive than WMDs more closely aligns with those that Pascal Bruckner writes about in his book, “Fanaticism Of The Apocalypse”. What Kerry is doing is an attempt to build fanaticism for his cause via propaganda formulated around a climate apocalypse and a newly created (post cold war) enemy that he labels ‘global warming deniers’ that will be responsible for this apocalypse. To assure his supporters embrace fanaticism for this new cold war which will lead to the climate apocalypse, Kerry uses CO2 apocalypse propaganda, shuts down discourse/debate and creates the false dichotomy that anyone not embracing the Kerry “fanaticism of the climate apocalypse” view, has to be the denier/enemy that needs to be neutralized in order to prevent the apocalypse. You are either with Kerry or against him; those are your only choices he has given to you.

a way of organizing a society in which a government ruled by a dictator controls the lives of the people and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government
: very harsh control or authority

With President Obama and Secretary of State Kerry imposing global warming catastrophism and the EPA enforcing it by diktat, this administration is definitely becoming climate fascist.

As a Journalist and a Professional Meteorologist I feel it is important to never stoop to name calling and personal attacks on those who take the other side in scientific debate.
I am professionally convinced there is no significant man-made global warming, has been none in the past and is no reason to fear any in the future. I am convinced that carbon dioxide is an essential trace gas, not a pollutant, and not a significant greenhouse gas. I will debate Revkin and all of his alarmist friends as long as I am alive.
It is a very difficult situation and very frustrating that the issues have become political, almost religious in its fervor, a key environmentalists agenda driven debate and an issue that is funded by billions of tax dollars that entrap major organizations and institutions into accepting the alarmists positions.
Despite all of this I will not stoop to calling Gove, Mann, et al names and being personally abusive. Only fifth graders who have run out of reasonable arguments stoop to name calling. Join me on the high road, please, one and all.

Dear Dr. Curry, Much of your peer criticism (in the press) comes from your apparent refusal to say that Earth’s temperatures have been increasing. Why can’t you say “straight up” something like Dr. Muller says? Yes, temps are increasing, No — we don’t have a good handle on the cause or being able to project in our models.

“Why can’t you say “straight up” something like Dr. Muller says? Yes, temps are increasing, No — we don’t have a good handle on the cause or being able to project in our models.”
——-
Some would say the question comes down to how much natural variability impacted late 20th century temperatures. Few scientists would posit that human activity has not altered the energy balance of the planet. What the models are bad at it is telling us exactly how the energy is being distributed.

Dear Joshua — yes, I am aware of Dr. Muller’s personal views on the cause. But I also see Dr. Muller repeatedly trying to find a starting place that everyone can agree on — something that Dr. Curry does not appear to be doing.

Dr. Curry’s quote last week on the APS really got my attention: “The Chair tried to nail down what we could all agree on versus what we disagree on. This didn’t get very far – anything meaningful ended up being the subject of debate and disagreement and labeled as ‘uncertain’.”

This is a “trust” issue. If us average Joe type laymen can not trust Dr. Curry to directly answer yes to the most basic and fundamental question “Is the Earth Warming?” (where Dr. Curry is being criticized by her peers in the press for not doing) — why should we laymen spend time and effort trying to understand Judith’s views on more complex things?

“Wagathon — Dr. Muller and the BEST team did at least “try” to address the Urban Heat Island effect in their data collection. Its not like they totally ignored it.”
——
It would good for Mosher to address this, and maybe Judith. Best did look at UHI, and the results rather upset Mr. Watts.

SS, how apt, perhaps you should attempt to formulate you question in a manner that it can answered unambigeously, but cannot be distorted by evil scum like yourself.
How about, the transient climate sensitivity of atmospheric [CO2], as defined by the IPCC is
1) between 0 and 0.7
2) >0.71.21.72.32.83.33.84.3

Actually, a while back (when I first started reading Climate Etc.) I recall that Judith had an interesting post where she discussed an outine of the points of agreement (and disagreement). I could be wrong, but it seems to me that her focus has moved away, at least somewhat, from such an approach to focus more specifically on points of disagreement.

This is a “trust” issue. If us average Joe type laymen can not trust Dr. Curry to directly answer yes to the most basic and fundamental question “Is the Earth Warming?” (where Dr. Curry is being criticized by her peers in the press for not doing) — why should we laymen spend time and effort trying to understand Judith’s views on more complex things?

I agree that “trust” (or more accurately a lack thereof) is a very key element in the battle over climate change. I also agree that an important part of establishing that trust is to start with a discussion of points of agreement. My perspective is that the discussion will only become significantly more productive when people approach the discussion as common stakeholders looking to identify shared “interests” rather than battle it out to protect “positions.” There are many related components to establishing trust and an effort to identify shared interests – , such as a lack of agreement upon definitions (even the most basic such as the meaning of “global warming.”) With an establishment of points of agreement, then the discussion could move on to a discussion of the different low and high probability outcomes from continued ACO2 emissions – from a framework such as that Judith excerpted from the Dot Earth article in her update above.

I agree that Judith could help to establish more trust if she were more explicit about her perspective on some aspects of the debate – such as why she feels comfortable saying that there has been a “hiatus in global warming,” based, it seems, only on a short-term decrease in the longer-term trend in the global mean of surface air temperatures. It seems to me that only if she addresses such questions can it become clear what her perspective is on whether the “Earth is warming,” and the related uncertainties. While it is clear that the thinks that there has been a “hiatus in global warming,” I’m not sure that it’s clear how she views that phenomenon in the larger context. So yes, again, I agree that it might be beneficial if she were more clear about what the points of agreement are.

As I recall, Watts was going to write something related to his reaction to BEST’s findings – something which was going to be of widespread international interest. If I’m not mistaken, he put everything on hold to work on it….

What was the final result of all of that? As hard as it is to believe, I seem to have missed it somehow.

Nothing ever came of the Watts study because the Best data pretty much made it irrelevant. Muller came out with his NY times editorial, Watts cancelled a vacation, but in the end, the impact of UHI effects on global temperatures was seen to be huge false flag red-herring that it is.

Anthony Visited Muller before I ever did. Muller explained the approach and Anthony gave him the station list. According to Anthony Muller promised not to release it as Anthony had a paper in review, essentially accepted. Anthony agree to accept Mullers results as he trusted the method. With good reason the head statistician was in contact with one of the leading climate skeptic stats guys.

After we published the paper Anthony was critical of a few things, mullers testimony and the fact that we looked at 1950 to present ( well we also looked at 1979 to present but thats a detail) He also criticized the fact that we did a sensitivity test where we compared class123 to class 45. He wanted us to compare class 1,2 to class 345.. Well, we did both. The comparison of CRN1,2,3 to CRN 45 actually supported anthonys position better. go figure.

Note in new unpublished WUWT 2012, for the “new classification” scheme of stations—
They move CRN 3, 4 and some 5s into the class 1,2. It took a while to reverse engineer the station maps they gave in the draft to actual stations but I was able to do about 95% of it.

basically they dropped 30% of the stations ratings ( mostly bad stations ) and moved some from CRN12 to 345, and some 345 to CRN12.. basically repeating a sensitivity test the criticized us for ( move 3 to CRN12). but they did some picking and choosing about which stations to reclassify. On the whole stations that were bad were declared good under the new scheme.

Then of course those 300 stations that had their ratings dropped will be an Briffa moment for Skeptics. Some very interesting tid bits in that pile.

Here is an example of what I’m trying to express — a short interview of Dr. Kim Cobb of Georgia Tech. Listening to Dr. Cobb’s direct answer invokes a sense of trust in us “Average Joe’s” that she is objective — and we would want to hear more from her and value her opinion pro or con on any specific topic.

I wouldn’t presume to speak for Dr. Curry. However, I believe I have read numerous times here and elsewhere words from her that say ‘Yes, temperatures have increased.’ Which I grant is subtly different from ‘temps are increasing.’

I also can almost guarantee that with little effort you can find quotes from her similar to your follow-on sentence about not having a good handle on the cause or being able to project in our models.’

That’s why there are climate trolls such as some participating in this thread. To make it harder to find out what people like Judith really say.

The short you-tube statement by Dr. Kim Cobb of Georgia Tech simply says that there is no doubt that added CO2 would have a net warming impact on our planet’s climate (i.e. the GH effect exists and CO2 is a GH gas).

She does NOT say:

– that this warming impact could be catastrophic
– that this warming impact could be significant
– that this warming impact could even be perceptible

That’s the “Uncertain T. Monster” (which I’m sure she is fully aware of, assuming that she is a climate scientist at Georgia Tech).

Stephen Segrest: “Why can’t you say “straight up” something like Dr. Muller says? Yes, temps are increasing, No — we don’t have a good handle on the cause or being able to project in our models.”

The “is warming” part is hard to justify based on recent data. “Had warmed” from the LIA up through 1998 (or some date) would come short of reaching agreement. “Has warmed” since the end of the LIA fails, for some people, to be sufficiently different from “is warming”. Then there is the whole issue of “attribution”: there is a reasonable theory that increased CO2 should cause some warming somewhere: whether it has done so, where, and by how much can only be addressed by coarse approximations, but some writers may not agree that the approximations are coarse. We have little agreement on how much warming would have occurred anyway without increased CO2.

Stephen Seagrest,
In your video there is a problem.
Saying that “it is warming the planet”, that statement can be said to be false.
The correct thing would be to say it exerts a warming effect, but that actual temperature rise is a different kettle of fish.

Dear Matthew Marler — on use of word “IS” versus “HAS”. Here is the issue — In the latest Pew Research Poll, with the question “Is there solid evidence that the Earth is warming”?, 41% of Tea Party Republicans responded “Just not happening”. I find it hard to believe that the majority of this Group make a distinction between “is” and “has”. It is much more believable that their conclusion is that the entire subject of GW/CC is “junk science”, made up by “liberals”. A chart of the Pew Results is at: http://www.people-press.org/files/2013/11/11-1-13-1-new.png

With Dr. Curry not clearly saying “The Earth’s temperature “has” increased is a point that Dr. Curry’s peers are publicly criticizing her on (in numerous OP/EDs) for not making — which feeds a mindset that GW/CC is “junk science” — eliminating any need for any objective dialogue.

There is one thing that has 100% certainty — that Dr. Curry and many others that contribute to this blog are very knowledgeable. It would be great if many of you on this blog would come to us “Average Joe’s” as teachers from time to time, explaining a “big picture” perspective (which of course is going to be gray and not black/white). For example, if the science community took the very lowest range of projected temperature increases from climate models — what would this show? Could we have a problem in 1,000 or 50 years? Us Average Joe’s don’t have a clue to this question.

“Could we have a problem in 1,000 or 50 years? Us Average Joe’s don’t have a clue to this question.”

Most skeptics say human CO2 emissions are not the knob. The so-called CO2 sensitivity is either low, very low or basically zero. You know like the H2O emissions, which are substantial and nobody cares. Very likely CO2 is like that too. Don’t worry.

I find it hard to believe that the majority of this Group make a distinction between “is” and “has”.

What you may or may not “find hard to believe” is immaterial to the discussion, Stephen.

The fact is that the global average land and sea surface temperature HAS stopped warming over at least the most recent decade, following a longer period of warming over the latter 3 decades of the 20th century..

IOW it is correct to say that it “has warmed”, and incorrect to say that it “is warming”.

Dear Max — I believe your (and others) use of the words “has” and “is” are totally appropriate and objective. The problem is that this is not what’s being said. Per Pew, 40% of very conservative people believe “Global Warming just isn’t happening”. Could you point me to the one (layman readable) scientific study that you feel is of high caliber/credibility that concludes that “The current Pause” shows that GW/CC is no longer something we should be overly concerned about.

The only reason why I was initially drawn to Dr. Muller and BEST was “trust”. BEST was funded by the Koch Brothers, perhaps the biggest opponents of GW/CC. BEST and Muller even though receiving millions in funding from Koch have said things that neither Koch nor the IPCC like.

Stephen Segrest, you said:
“Dear Max — I believe your (and others) use of the words “has” and “is” are totally appropriate and objective. The problem is that this is not what’s being said. Per Pew, 40% of very conservative people believe “Global Warming just isn’t happening”. Could you point me to the one (layman readable) scientific study that you feel is of high caliber/credibility that concludes that “The current Pause” shows that GW/CC is no longer something we should be overly concerned about.”

If it’s a problem with perception, then you need to place blame where it belongs, to a great extent – on hyper propagandist scientists and D party politicians who insisted that human input had forever nullified natural variability, and that temperatures would skyrocket.

And that was even before the last 1/4 of all the CO2 ever emitted got emitted!

You should check polls on what farmers think, because an even greater percentage of those solid citizens ( and having good recall and a huge stake in the matter), believe they would have been screwed had they fallen in line.

No question that it has warmed in ~30-year cycles of warming followed by ~30 year cycles of slight cooling, with an underlying warming trend of around 0.65C per century, since the modern global temperature record started in 1850.

I have not seen any conclusive data, which show that “40% of conservatives” doubt this recorded fact. They may disagree on why this is occurring, or may attribute part of the warming to spurious signals from UHI, etc., but I do not believe that they disagree that the temperature record shows this gradual underlying warming trend.

Now to another topic:

You asked the question:

Is the following simple statement true or false: There is overwhelming consensus with Climate Scientists that the Earth’s temperature is increasing.

In view of the current pause in global warming, which has lasted over a decade, it is correct to say it “has increased” rather than “is increasing”, an observation with which most climate scientists would certainly agree (although I have also seen no conclusive evidence that this is the case).

I hope I answered your first question. In the meantime, you have posed a second one (bold face type by me):

Could you point me to the one (layman readable) scientific study that you feel is of high caliber/credibility that concludes that “The current Pause” shows that GW/CC is no longer something we should be overly concerned about.”

I would direct you first of all to the Richard Tol study, which concludes that the first 2.7C warming above early 20thC levels will be of net economic benefit to mankind.

The study shows that the net negative impact of a climate warmer by more than 2.7C is largely due to anticipated major increases in energy costs; IOW, if energy costs can be kept low, added warming would be beneficial even beyond warming of 2.7C.

If we use the estimates of several recent observation-based studies on CO2 temperature response, which show that this is around half the estimates predicted by the climate models cited by IPCC and used by the Tol study, this pushes the date when added warming would cease to be beneficial to well beyond 2100.

Being “overly concerned about” something that might or might not happen by the end of this century does not make sense, in light of the many uncertainties relating to new technological developments and unknown natural climate changes, which could occur over this long period.

Imagine the life of illusion the Western world celebrate if Herculean efforts to eliminate human-caused CO2 had been taken back in ’96 and despite destroying society and robbing unborn generations of opportunity, feckless academics had been congratulating themselves ever since for saving the world.

“Climate change science is a modern day “Piltdown Man,” and represents the worst of science and the corrupting influence of political bias.”

The latter is what my liberal friends can’t see. They absolutely buy the 97 percent consensus myth. Those who argue that science is not some sort of democratic process whereby truth is determined by a counting of heads, are of course absolutely correct. But in practical terms, it’s a lousy debating point. The recent Wall Street Journal piece by Christy and McNider didn’t even bother to challenge that such a consensus exists, choosing to argue instead that the consensus is often wrong. They write:

“We are reminded of the dangers of consensus science in the past. For example, in the 18th century, more British sailors died of scurvy than died in battle. In this disease, brought on by a lack of vitamin C, the body loses its ability to manufacture collagen, and gums and other tissues bleed and disintegrate. These deaths were especially tragic because many sea captains and some ships’ doctors knew, based on observations early in the century, that fresh vegetables and citrus cured scurvy.”

I try to read climate change articles as if I were an uninformed warmist. As such my first thought would be, “Well hell, we’re talking about the 1700’s! Surely, we can trust a 97 percent consensus in this day and age. Yes, it *might* be wrong, but I’m betting it’s not. Not in such overwhelming numbers.”

To change minds, the very notion that such a consensus exists has to be attacked effectively Otherwise, arguments about how Galileo was proven right and The Church wrong, just aren’t going to cut it.

JCH: all sorts of problems with the 97% “consensus”, mainly that it is a shallow consensus that pretty much everyone agree with anyway. Basic physics tells us that *other things being equal* more CO2 will lead to warming; it’s the “other things” that there might be more uncertainty about. Then there is, how much warming- is there such a consensus on that? then there is- how dangerous/problematic is this warming? on what time-scales etc There is no such consensus claimed on these things. But the main problem is that the 97% has been created as a meme and used to justify all sorts of policies, none of which have a consensus to back them, the main one of course is supra-national agreements on carbon reduction targets, without any plausible method of actually reaching said targets. Failure of policies is then blamed on the “deniers” even though most of these are actually policy skeptics who accept the narrow assumptions of the “consensus” !

To change minds, the very notion that such a consensus exists has to be attacked effectively

What’s amusing about that article is that it employs the same (fallacious, IMO) logic of dana, John Cook, et. al; the “deficit model,” whereby if the public just had more information about the “consensus” (polls show that they underestimated it, considerably), they would alter their views on climate change.

The evidence (read Kahan, for example), shows that the public has no problem rationalizing information such as the prevalence of “experts” who hold a certain believe so as to confirm their biases.

It does always strike me how symmetrical the climate ward is in that the extremists on both sides employ the same fallacious reasoning.

Just to refresh your memory, below is the CAGW premise as outlined by IPCC in AR4.

1. human GHGs have been the cause of most of the observed warming since ~1950 [AR4 WGI SPM, p.10]
2. this reflects a model-predicted 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3.2°C±0.7°C [AR4 WGI Ch.8, p.633]
3. this represents a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment from anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the range of 1.8°C to 6.4°C by the end of this century with increase in global sea level of up to 0.59 meters [AR4 WGI SPM, p.13]
4.resulting in increased severity and/or intensity of heat waves, heavy precipitation events, droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high sea levels [AR4 WGI SPM, p.8],
5. with resulting flooding of several coastal cities and regions, crop failures and famines, loss of drinking water for millions from disappearing glaciers, intensification and expansion of wildfires, severe loss of Amazon forests, decline of corals, extinction of fish species, increase in malnutrition, increase in vector borne and diarrheal diseases, etc. [AR4 WGII]
6. unless world-wide actions are undertaken to dramatically curtail human GHG emissions (principally CO2) [AR4 WGIII]

In AR5 IPCC has reduced the mean 2xCO2 sensitivity estimate from 3.2 to 3.0C, has reduced “worst case” warming by the end of the century by a smidgen, increased projected SL rise to 0.82 meters, and backed off a bit on the attribution of extreme weather events to AGW, but otherwise its definition of “CAGW” remains pretty much the same as in AR4.

This is the CAGW premise, which is in contention, and to which there is NO 97% consensus, JCH.

I will also add that I just love the “logic” of some “skeptics” where they tell us over and over that the existence of a “consensus” doesn’t tell us anything about the science and then turn right around and argue to the death about precisely what is the prevalence of opinion among “experts” w/r/t climate change.

I took a large number of datasets and ran a function called “proc stepwise.” The computer then ran countless tests to find the best model for me. It basically was the scientific method in reverse. The computer identified the most significant variables and even assigned weights to them. The problem is, there was no model, there was no theory, all I did was “fit a curve.” I could have modeled the S&P 500 on data sets measuring the time to takes to chug a beer, estimates of the number of jelly beans in a jar and height of trees in a forest and the computer would have found me the best model. That is how junk science is performed.

For ten thousand years, no, now for eleven thousand years, Temperature has spent half the time warming and half the time cooling. It has spent almost no time at a steady state temperature. Climate Models like to hover around a steady state temperature and then go up as CO2 goes up. Real temperature does not do what Climate Model Output does. All the warm periods in the past eleven thousand years were times when Albedo was Lower because Ice Extent was Lower. All the Cold Periods in the past eleven thousand years were times when Albedo was Higher because Ice Extent was Higher. All the warm periods ended because when oceans are warmer and polar sea ice is melted, it snows more and after years of more snowfall, the ice advances and causes a little ice age. All the little ice ages ended because when oceans are colder and polar waters are frozen on top, it does not snow enough to replace the ice that melts every summer and the ice volume reduces and after years of this the ice stops advancing and then retreats and causes the next warm period.

This ice cycle does not do the major cooling of Earth. The greenhouse gas, water vapor, does most of the cooling. CO2 does a little bit of the cooling of earth. Manmade CO2 does a tiny little bit of cooling.

Greenhouse gases cool the Earth, they do not warm the earth. IR radiation does cool the Earth. The sun warms the earth. The ice cycle does the fine tuning of temperature. The set point is the temperature that polar sea ice melts and freezes.

IT ALWAYS SNOWS MORE THEN TEMPERATURE IS ABOVE THE SET POINT AND IT ALWAYS SNOWS LESS WHEN TEMPERATURE IS BELOW THE SET POINT.

The polar ice cycles developed and now regulate Earth Temperature in tight bounds and this new cycle has been working perfectly for eleven thousand years.

The polar ice cycles have regulated temperature for a million years, but not as tightly as the most recent paradise. The IR cycle does not have a Set Point. The Ice Cycle does have a Set Point.

Look at the data and offer a different explanation with a set point and easy to understand feedback or forcing that always works in the same bounds and in the correct direction.

The more CO2 just makes green stuff grow better while needing less water.

The steady state IR cycle is in Consensus Climate Theory and Models. It does most of the cooling of Earth.

The oscillating thousand year Albedo cycle is not in Consensus Theory and not in Consensus Climate Models.
There is nothing in Consensus Theory that could cause the thousand year cycle.

This ice extent decrease has caused the warming from every cold period into every warm period. Consensus Theory has given CO2 full credit for this warming and has gotten huge sensitivities that are not there.

You are correct. Anything such as CO2, water vapour, and so on, result in cooling, not warming.

Certainly any university physics lab should have far better equipment to demonstrate this than I had at my disposal years ago. I’m not sure why the reluctance to carry out the experiment, and then accept the results.

For forecasts of the coming cooling based on the 60 year and 1000 year periodicities in the temperature data and the neutron count as a proxy for solar “activity” see several posts at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com

I first coined the term “parasitic climatic ambulance chasers” on the Sean Hannity radio show over a year ago. The fact is they are taking from society and giving nothing back, and in fact PREVENTING true progress in the lifting of the weakest among us. They are in every sense, behaving as a parasite would on a host. And the ambulance chasers, that is obvious, using every weather event as an example of what they claim is going on.

I dont know whether to take credit or simply leave it tot he person pushing it now, but it did draw a chuckle from Sean at the time ( on radio)

Josh sneers: “You wouldn’t want future generations to not know who to pay tribute to for such a valuable contribution to the world.”

Agree with him or not, like him or not, Joe Bastardi’s a respected figure in long range forecasting. If you were contemplating travel to the U.K. next year, you’d have to be an idiot not to credit his forecast for the area, over that of the Met Office with their almost unblemished record of spectacular failures.

What have you done with your life, Joshua? What contributions have you made? Easy to throw rocks, especially anonymously. Much harder to actually achieve something in the world.

Lots of folks are involved in various aspects of climate and weather forecasting, etc., and certainly not all of them are “parasites” or “ambulance chasers”.

You, for example, are anything but a parasite, having given the general public a wealth of hands on information over the years on how our weather and climate work.

Nor is it true for our hostess here, who is helping lawmakers understand the great uncertainties surrounding the ongoing scientific and policy debate on climate change and has created this site as a place where interested laymen can exchange views and comment on various climate-related developments

Nor is it true for the many people who are involved in severe weather forecasting and early warning systems.

But we all know who is meant (no names needed):

– those politicians or bureaucrats who warn us that “the science is settled” and “it’s time to act”

– those politicians or bureaucrats who denigrate anyone who holds a dissenting opinion as “flat-earthers” or “deniers”

– those scientists who have given up their scientific objectivity in order to become activists or prophets of doom

– those scientists who fudge the data to make the results fit the preconceived agenda for ideological reasons or in order to get taxpayer funding

– those scientists who simply go along with the forced consensus due to peer pressure or because it’s the “PC” thing to do

“I consider juvenile behavior to be juvenile behavior, no matter if the person behaving that way is good at making forecasts.”

Joshua, I agree… Though it does give some satisfaction to the juvenile when it’s positively recognized by others. Heck, I occasionally participate myself, but it really does not improve discourse especially when certain phrases and terms are used in ways simply to stifle discussion. In essence, that is all it really accomplishes.

What I found quite interesting was the APS transcript. Certainly there was plenty of opportunity for the scientists, with their opposing viewpoints, to sink to snarky comments, but it didn’t happen. I interpreted a few tense moments particularly when Christy gave his presentation and during the post presentation discussion with Santer and Collins… But it remained very civil. How to explain this? I would say it is because they are peers. I would say it is because they were all together in the same room. I would say that it is because they all offer mutually respected observations that they all recognize. I would say that it is because they all agree on the basic ‘settled’ science. I would say that it was because they all recognized it was a balanced panel that was genuinely trying to get differing and diverse interpretations of climate science. I would say it was because they were all compelled to behave like adults….well, because they are and they want to be professional.

I anticipate the APS statement will look much different than previous ones based on the behavior of the panel and method adopted by the APS that… Surprise… Appears to be a much more methodical processes. Funny how when people treat each other respectfully, a more informed outcome emerges.

Nonetheless, your participation here is distinguished by a lower % of juvenility.

…but it really does not improve discourse especially when certain phrases and terms are used in ways simply to stifle discussion. In essence, that is all it really accomplishes.

I think that the function of the name-calling is not to improve discourse, but to mark territory. It’s about establishing “us” and “them.” The “identity-protective” and “identity-aggressive” discourse is a signal of motiva… reaso…

BTW – did you catch that link I left for you of the interview with RPJr and Trenberth? I thought you might find it interesting.

A number of people have been adjectived; Cassandra, Quisling and Boycott.
Why not just describe the people who torture language, logic and data, so to promote the possibility of ‘Thermogeddon’ as ‘Jushua’s’. To Josh is already a coinage that means to make fun of so to ‘Joshua’ means to jumble and corrupt as a means to an end.

There are some (mostly of the second tier acolytes and lesser lights, is my impression, but no doubt there are exceptions!) for whom your appellation “parasitic climate ambulance chasers) is quite apt. But I’m quite partial to Eduardo Zorita’s 2012 coinage, “climate hypochondriacs”:

I think the lessons from Climategate have not been completely learned. I personally would have advocated much more transparency, for instance making the IPCC author meetings public on the internet.

Are there “alarmists”? Is that a good term?

Yes, I think there are alarmists, if by that term we include those that see anthropogenic forcing behind every change we see in the environment. Perhaps alarmist is not the right term. I would rather use the expression ‘climate hypochondriacs’.

Joshua, I just looked through the climate threads of every consensus weblog, hunting for your denunciations of those using the term ‘denier’ and logical explanations of the harm it caused your cause.

In vain, sadly.

First – why would you think that my behavior would somehow offer some justification for that of Joe? Does my behavior somehow change the nature of his behavior?

Second – you could try looking harder. I have not only said that I don’t agree with the use of the term, in addition I think that practices such as using the term denier tells me more about the user than the usee, and lower my confidence in the scientific value of their input.

How do I adapt to thee, let me count the ways (with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

“If we had known in 1998 that even if we had tried nothing more to prevent climate change there would be no warming for two decades, that ought to have changed very markedly the policy assessment.”

The very next sentence speaks to the time line: 5 years into the future. If you are going to predict the future, then you had better confine your remarks to something that will be obvious within 5 years. The corollary, if you are going marshal policy, manpower and treasure to address a threat the timeline is also 5 years.

Sea level rise? 0 to 3.5 mm/yr? let’s see 0 to 1.75 cm/5 yrs.? ahhhh, maybe nibble around the edges like educating municipal planning committees to reject tearing down dunes, building in wet lands and flood plains, full cost of flood insurance levied upon developers and shore property owners, no subsidies.

Farm land & ranges? Support the aging farmers (average age 59 years) as they slowly give up farming and invest in strategies for farm land/ranch land preservation farming (limited till, crop cover year around) by the industrial farming corporations. Policies for investing for the long term.

Flooding & drought? small dams further up creeks and rivers to mitigate the hard rain accumulating water from cascading down the hills with their gully wash and trash mover force. Rebuild and replenish aquifers. Develop technologies and install covers to address evaporative water loss from reservoirs, rivers, and aqueducts.

Too cold or too hot? Invest in consistent base load reliable and inexpensive energy and the electrical grid that goes with such infrastructure.

Aren’t all these ideas sexy? Aren’t politicians just waiting for a chance to jump on this mitigation strategy bandwagon? Aren’t journalists counting their days to their own Pulitzer Prize for mitigation reporting? Aren’t environmentalists willing to cease and desist their publicity seeking behavior and get down to brass tacks and doing field work research instead of playing video games and pontificating from their closets?

So, if we truly love thee, we will adap the land, sea & air as well as ourselves.

RiHo, you seem to be the first poster to connect to the major message in this WIR, on what policies would actually help – almost half way down the page at this time. I’ve addressed it below. Glad someone’s keeping an eye on the ball, even if it’s covering a dam.

FWIW, evaporation from dams is a major cause of loss of irrigation/drinking water in Australia. No doubt Robert Ellison will have a better handle on it (and perhaps a different view).

Next time you have Christy quoted using the words “fact-based views” could you put a bold sentence a few lines above to the effect that what follows may cause spit-takes, requiring extensive cleaning of keyboard and screen.

If John Christy does not have ‘fact based views’, then how do you explain his invitation to inform the panel reviewing the APS statement on climate change. Did the APS really make a scientific gaffe in asking about his views?

“You can’t seriously look at the list of invitees and think the composition of the panel has anything in the least to do with science or facts.”

Huh, by itself… No. I read the entire transcript and yet no where did I find Santer, Collins or Held refute the majority of observation Christy makes. And though you can’t look at the list of invitees and draw a conclusion, you can consider how the list was determined. The composition of the panel certainly was not determined in a vacuum, randomly picked out if the climate science phone book. And though I don’t know the process by which the panelists were selected, it is rather cynical to take the view that it was done with no scientific merit to the work they produce as a consideration.

Ok, I understand how one has difficulty answering questions when parsing sentences so literally, my bad dude. Let me rephrase in simpler terms that I hope you will understand. Did the APS make a mistake asking Christy for his scientific views? Simple yes/no question, see if you can focus.

They are very tolerant of krankpots, and history shows this.
They believe that exposure to fresh air is the best disinfectant.

So what you will find is that the APS committee will allow any dues-paying member to the APS to submit abstracts to their Spring and Fall meetings. As long as they pay their dues, the APS will publish the abstract and allow the submitter to present their findings.

In graduate school, my fellow students and I would find this hysterical. When the abstract books came out, which were the thickness of telephone books, we would quickly scan for the krank abstracts. These were typically easy to find because they would be these densely illustrated ink blots that needed to fit in the 3″ x 3″ box that the APS would provide.

The kranks would typically be pseudo-geologists who would try to cram their abstract box with crazy drawings of plate tectonics,etc, allowing their hand-written text to run sideways to fill in the abstract box as they ran out of room.

That’s what Christy is — a krank — and the APS is allowing him to air his views so everyone can make up their own mind on his stability.

BTW, the submitters of the abstracts invariably never appeared at the meetings.

The composition of the panel certainly was not determined in a vacuum, randomly picked out if the climate science phone book.

Certainly not. Although it does seem that the makeup of the panel was a matter of picking 3 from a relative handful of candidates on one “side,” and picking from 3 of a bucketful (dumptruck-full?) of candidates on the other “side.” Or, do you think that the makeup of the panel was a representative sampling give the prevalence of views among physicists? If not, then why do you suppose that a non-representative panel was assembled?

Dr. John Christy testified before Congress to the effect that understanding of the climate has not increased since the 1970’s, implying the total fabrication that the seventies was a decade where science was dominated by global cooling theory; Dr. Kerry Emanuel in response immediately shut down that nonsense with fact and reason, in a manner no one could call ad hominem. Look it up.

Dr. Christy characterizes climate science as jumping to conclusions about AGW. Which, let’s face it, with tens of thousands of pages of IPCC report and thousands of climate studies, holds no water. There are some fifty essential climate metrics used to characterize climate, and their trends are consilient in pointing toward human causes. That’s not even remotely ad hominem.

Are you aware of any significant peer-reviewed refutations based on observations and analyses that support Dr. Christy’s views on either of these two positions?

There’s practically a whole sub-branch of climatology that appears dedicated to addressing the false claims Dr. Christy makes, and while I have no doubt many members of that cadre are as obnoxious and antagonistic as any other numbers-obsessed geek, the bulk of results show the esteemed and respected UAH evangelist to make repeated claims unsupported by fact.

” Or, do you think that the makeup of the panel was a representative sampling give the prevalence of views among physicists? If not, then why do you suppose that a non-representative panel was assembled?”

Joshua,

The make up of the panel did not seem to be a representative sampling wrt views on attribution of climate change. As I stated before, I don’t know how the panel was determined, but it did appear the APS wanted to look at views less enamored by models vs those who enamored by them.

“That’s what Christy is — a krank — and the APS is allowing him to air his views so everyone can make up their own mind on his stability”

WHT

So let’s take a look at what the krank agrees with when faced with the most basic questions 97% of climate scientists presumably agree with. Being a krank, I am expecting some wild, erratic, hand waving lunatic answers.. You know, like scribbles in a 3″ x 3″ abstract box. Let’s go to the APS transcript.

Dr. Koonin:
“I think the first is that the global temperature has risen certainly from, let’s say, 1980 to 1998 or so in a fairly steep way, and that post-1998 or ’99, we have seen a moderation of that trend, if not flat-lining of the temperature.
In other words, there isn’t much disagreement about what the global mean surface temperature record is now compared to, let’s say, ten years ago or so.”

So the krank has a chance to dispute this…. But he along with everyone else does not disagree that the planet has warmed or that GMST’s have been level for the past 15 years or so. There were no verbal answers of dissent, so let’s move on…

Dr Koonin:
“All right. Let me try another statement. This one is going to be interesting, that certainly the atmospheric CO2 has gone up over the last century, and it is largely, almost exclusively an anthropogenic increase due mostly to burning fossil fuels.”

The krank says:

“I think people like me would say that’s what we have been told, and I don’t see any reason to disagree with it very strongly.”

Curry said:

“It’s beyond the scope of what I can critically evaluate.”

and then

“No, I don’t have any reason to disagree with that”

Huh, the krank agrees with that too. Moving on…

Dr. Koonin asks another question:

“Let me try a third. Sea-level rise has continued over the last, I don’t know, let’s say 60 years. It has been going up. The current rate over the last decade is higher than it has been historically, but not at all unprecedented in the record, again, consistent with the uncertainties that we have seen in the figures.”

After Dr Koonin changed the time frame from 60 to 100 years, the krank had the following to say:

“As Judy said, that’s not my area of expertise, but I believe that.”

Amazing how well ranks agree with the 97% so far. Let’s continue…

Dr. Koonin:

“Right. Let’s try another one. We have signatures of anthropogenic influence on the climate, but there is disagreement as to how strong that influence is and what it will be in future decades. Let me not say “disagreement,” but there is uncertainty. You have signatures, but what is going to happen in the future is uncertain.”

The krank asks:

“By “climate,” you mean temperature?”

To which Dr. Koonin replies,

“That’s probably the simplest interpretation, and I mean more than regional.”

To which the krank replies:

“I agree with that, but I don’t know how much.”

So yet again when faced with another consensus agreeing statement the krank agrees.

To which Dr. Koonin then says:

“That’s the second step — how much?”

And then the krank shows his true colors and says..

“We don’t have a thermometer that says Mother Nature did this much and humans did that much.”

Whaaa..??? We don’t? What a krank. Wait, Dr. Koonin has more to say…

“I get a sense we are starting to approach our limit of agreement here.”

Heh, here I’m thinking, based on your interpretation of what a krank is…. Someone who uses a crayon to write an abstract (if a krank even knows what one is… that is an abstract, not a crayon)… That they would likely disagree with the basic facts. You know, the moon landing is a hoax, just like AGW. In this example the krank is totally on board…… what a funny notion… that kranks don’t debate the ‘settled’ science stuff… You know, the part everyone agrees on. I mean, isn’t that the definition of a krank? Someone who disagrees with the settled science part? Someone who believes in unicorns?

Well anyway, unlike sending abstracts to spring and fall meetings, Christy was invited to give his views. An invitation he accepted and went to and presented at, again, unlike the example of the kranks you envision, he showed up.

So yeah, let the public judge him on his stability based on those responses… Just not sure ‘krank’ will be the conclusion they reach.

So the fact that RSS produces almost identical figures and they both track very closely to HadCrut and GISS is of no consequence? The fact that UAH has been shown to be verifiable to Balloon figures also.

I also look forward to your robust and definitive rejection of Cowtan & Way as, unless you are some form of Alice in Wonderland figure who only sees what supports their case and never any more, you will need to reject in its entirety.

So the fact that RSS produces almost identical figures and they both track very closely to HadCrut and GISS is of no consequence? The fact that UAH has been shown to be verifiable to Balloon figures also.

What’s this? The two sets are so divergent as to have next to no similarity except in the grossest sense? Even someone who was almost blind could see the difference, with the Fruit Loops removed.

The dissimilarities and divergences of RSS and UAH have been noted, commented on, and the subject of frequent debate for years.. except by UAH, which has steadfastly stonewalled on the topic.

You again make false claims. I won’t even ask what balloons you’re imagining support your case.

RichardLH | February 26, 2014 at 4:52 am |

I also look forward to your robust and definitive rejection of Cowtan & Way as, unless you are some form of Alice in Wonderland figure who only sees what supports their case and never any more, you will need to reject in its entirety.

Uh.. well, talking about veering left into the Twilight Zone, prithee, what the heck are you talking about now? How exactly does Christy being indefensible bring Cowtan and Way into question? What are your questions about Cowtan and Way? They themselves have — unlike Christy — openly and at length examined the weaknesses and failings in their own work. Did you need me to add something to what they’ve said?

Why?

It’s my feeling Cowtan and Way have performed a good service and come to interesting findings, often overlooked. Their novel methods bear closer scrutiny (which they’ve said themselves), and don’t always work (which they’ve said themselves), but on the balance of probabilities lead to conclusions likelier than not accurate or very nearly true. Do you see how these qualities are different from Dr. Christy’s UAH work and absurd testimony over the past several years?

However, since BEST Global Land and Ocean is available, we can easily examine which — UAH or Cowtan & Way — more closely resembles this ambitious grand daddy of climate records.

Why not look at what happens when you line up UAH, RSS, C&W vs. BEST Global?

“Uh.. well, talking about veering left into the Twilight Zone, prithee, what the heck are you talking about now? How exactly does Christy being indefensible bring Cowtan and Way into question? What are your questions about Cowtan and Way? They themselves have — unlike Christy — openly and at length examined the weaknesses and failings in their own work. Did you need me to add something to what they’ve said?”

Because C&W used UAH to do their work? Or did you miss that when you scanned their paper!

“It’s my feeling Cowtan and Way have performed a good service and come to interesting findings, often overlooked. Their novel methods bear closer scrutiny (which they’ve said themselves), and don’t always work (which they’ve said themselves), but on the balance of probabilities lead to conclusions likelier than not accurate or very nearly true. Do you see how these qualities are different from Dr. Christy’s UAH work and absurd testimony over the past several years?”

They managed to infill one data set from another data set without aligning (as they should have done) other the whole of their overlap period but instead used very short time spans and very small geographical distances.

If you do not understand what the potential problems are with that then…..

“However, since BEST Global Land and Ocean is available, we can easily examine which — UAH or Cowtan & Way — more closely resembles this ambitious grand daddy of climate records.

Why not look at what happens when you line up UAH, RSS, C&W vs. BEST Global?”

How strange. Such a decidedly parochial viewpoint. 34 years and you still cannot accept that someone might be better informed than you. Just because they have not explained their process in sufficient detail for you to understand. Not that their results show any consistency or comparison to figures from other sources. It might just be magic I suppose but I suspect that a scientific explanation would be more likely. YMMV.

P.S. I hope you reject Cowtan & Way as they have dared to use it in their work. Bad boys.

Cowtan and Way were trying the much more difficult problem of getting Arctic Ocean temperatures without surface measurements. I think for land areas we have the in situ instruments (known as thermometers), so why use anything else, let alone trust it more?

The ocean is more undersampled than the land, and that is where the pause is concentrated. It is very easy to fill land gaps in because the station correlation distances show that interpolation is going to be very good. You have to assume cooling areas are hiding between the surface stations in a systematic way, and that is just wishful thinking. There is no reason to believe that the sampling produces a bias in either direction, and they can, and do, easily test the sampling errors by subsampling, which indicates that there are more than enough stations to tie down warming rates.

Also that (min + max) / 2 is only a gross approximation at best for a 24 hour period.”

Where do these people come from? Who is paying them?

It’s the historical data we have. It’s your problem to show that the DC value of an AC waveform is not the average of the modelled sinusoid.

Do you understand that it is your problem to show why (min+max)/2 is not good enough? That you have to give examples of how and where it doesn’t work and that the bias is systematically in one direction? There are plenty of places where you can get detailed high-reolution hourly and subhourly data and do the averaging yourself.

I am fed up with hearing about a 97% consensus and I’m astonished that it isn’t challenged much more. There is no agreement on the proportion of warming caused by CO2 emissions as opposed to other factors beyond our control, and there is no agreement on whether it is worth doing anything about it.

Exactly right. See my post above. Some skeptical scientists I believe, like to see themselves as heroic rebels. As such, they need a consensus to be battling against. Far more effective to challenge it, because it simply does not exist.

Do 97 percent (or some such overwhelming majority) believe Co2 is a GHG that will warm the atmosphere? Sure. Almost all skeptics would answer that in the affirmative as well.

But how much? To what effect? Might any benefits of a warmer world outweigh the negatives? And if not, is the cost of mitigation better than that of adaptation?

Bearing in mind that the tropical oceans are always very much warmer than the Arctic ocean, and varying amounts of this warmth has always been advected to the Arctic at varying times throughout history, would you say it follows that there’s now more heat being advected, or would you consider that perhaps other factors, like currents and winds, not to mention the reduced thermal gradient between the tropics and the poles, have a bigger say?

So you put the two together and you’ve got your answer.
And you don’t question how, with an average increase of 0.4C in SST, and much less equivalent increase in temperature due to OHC, that so much more warmth is being advected to the Arctic? Especially when almost all of the oceanic heat transport to the Arctic is from the relatively tiny Atlantic? Let’s leave it another century or so to see what the long-term effect really is.

“Let’s leave it another century or so to see what the long-term effect really is.”
——
That is indeed what the “uncertainty monster” might like. By then of course we will likely be seeing regular ice-free Arctic summers.

R. Gates – you mention some good points, but I would not ascribe the recent warm Atlantic waters arriving in the Arctic to be anything other than another case of natural variability, little affected by the anthropogenic increase in CO2.

“We find that early–21st-century temperatures of Atlantic Water entering the Arctic Ocean are unprecedented over the past 2000 years…” Well, the history of cod fish migration to those northern areas tell a different story, as those fish prefer a specific temperature (fishermen could tell you the same thing) as the Vikings of olden days discovered as they fished from Iceland, Greenland, and then following the cod fish to the discovery of North America.

As the warmer waters melted the Arctic sea ice, that action caused those newly ice-free areas to lose more heat come late summer and early autumn, thus increasing the polar/equator thermal gradient.
This thermal gradient disparity is causing the present record cold temperatures and record snow falls in the Midwestern and Eastern portions of the United States as those southbound cold, high pressure systems emanating from the polar region push farther south, thus forcing more northbound warm, moisture laden air to be advected from equatorial regions.

The aforementioned scenario has been ongoing since the current continental configuration – no increase/decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide necessary.

“…but I would not ascribe the recent warm Atlantic waters arriving in the Arctic to be anything other than another case of natural variability.”
——-
That certainly is possible, but unlikely to 100% natural variability. The climate system is gaining energy, mainly in the oceans, and the natural advection of that energy to the polar region will play a big role in bringing about an ice-free summer Arctic later this century.

Climate change science … represents the worst of science and the corrupting influence of political bias

campaigns of educating the public (through science or alarm) are futile.

We should talk less about consensus and more about the consequences of being wrong

… even when scientists are motivated to promote the truth, their behaviour may be influenced, and even dominated, by information gleaned from their peers’ behaviour, rather than by their personal dispositions. This phenomenon, known as herding, subjects the scientific community to an inherent risk of converging on an incorrect answer and raises the possibility that, under certain conditions, science may not be self-correcting.

We should not have a climate-science research program that searches only for ways to confirm prevailing theories

My interpretation of all this

– IPCC was set up to demonstrate the need for “prevention” (mitigation) against CAGW
– This created the need for scientific proof (of CAGW) rather than for scientific truth, i.e. for agenda-driven science
– The forced consensus resulted in shutting out of conflicting data and dissenting opinion
– Taxpayer funding was funneled to those programs that confirmed the consensus position
– Even scientists, who were originally searching for the truth, became victims of a herding phenomenon
– After all these years of no mitigation results yet stalled warming, the general public now sees that global climate change cannot be prevented; it can only be adapted to on a local or regional basis, if and when this could be required

“Why are there people who seem hell-bent on denying anthropogenic global warming?”gue

William M. Connolley and others ar

The professionals

[This section added after the first comment.] How embarrassing. I totally forgot this category: those who are simply for hire. Perhaps I can justify forgetting about them, in the context of the question, because the answer is obvious: money. Its not large, numerically, but of course its part of the hard core; and part of their function is to be a core for the weak to coalesce around. They aren’t worth talking to, of course, because they aren’t it to learn, but only for the gold. They’re worth talking at, because of the bystanders.

First Comment
“Follow the $$$. There’s still $10Ts of fossil fuels in the ground, and fossil fuel billionaires want to make sure that they can harvest it all”

Ego

[Another one I forgot. DB says it quite well in a comment so I won’t re say it.

DB Comment
“You missed one: Ego.

The best current example is Judith Curry. A few years ago she was just another scientist, competent and well-regarded in her field but hardly front page news. Now she’s one of the go-to people when the national or international media need a soundbite from a contrarian with real scientific qualifications, she’s called upon to testify before Congress, and basks in the adulation of her “denizens.” Heady stuff.

In a similar vein Isaac Held once remarked about Lindzen, “You can’t prove that you are smarter than everyone else by being part of a consensus, but you can hope for this outcome by being a contrarian.”

[Yes, good point. That does account for a couple of the “big names”; and indeed perhaps for some of the followers too -W]”

‘ENSO causes climate extremes across and beyond the Pacific basin; however, evidence of ENSO at high southern latitudes is generally restricted to the South Pacific and West Antarctica. Here, the authors report a statistically significant link between ENSO and sea salt deposition during summer from the Law Dome (LD) ice core in East Antarctica. ENSO-related atmospheric anomalies from the central-western equatorial Pacific (CWEP) propagate to the South Pacific and the circumpolar high latitudes. These anomalies modulate high-latitude zonal winds, with El Niño (La Niña) conditions causing reduced (enhanced) zonal wind speeds and subsequent reduced (enhanced) summer sea salt deposition at LD. Over the last 1010 yr, the LD summer sea salt (LDSSS) record has exhibited two below-average (El Niño–like) epochs, 1000–1260 ad and 1920–2009 ad, and a longer above-average (La Niña–like) epoch from 1260 to 1860 ad. Spectral analysis shows the below-average epochs are associated with enhanced ENSO-like variability around 2–5 yr, while the above-average epoch is associated more with variability around 6–7 yr. The LDSSS record is also significantly correlated with annual rainfall in eastern mainland Australia. While the correlation displays decadal-scale variability similar to changes in the interdecadal Pacific oscillation (IPO), the LDSSS record suggests rainfall in the modern instrumental era (1910–2009 ad) is below the long-term average. In addition, recent rainfall declines in some regions of eastern and southeastern Australia appear to be mirrored by a downward trend in the LDSSS record, suggesting current rainfall regimes are unusual though not unknown over the last millennium.’ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00003.1?journalCode=clim

The IPO is a pattern of variability with warm and cool regimes that persists for 20 to 40 years. The regimes involve both the PDO and modulation of the frequency and intensity of ENSO events. The cool mode favours La Nina formation and vice versa.

The long period – not to mention the intriguing millennial variability – suggests an external forcing for the IPO. It operates in both hemispheres – and the period far exceeds the time either Kelvin or Rossby waves take to cross the Pacific.

‘The extent to which wavelike motions in the ocean
reflect from boundaries, whether lateral or vertical, has
major implications for the ocean circulation. In particular, reflectivity of the western boundary in the presence of low latitude baroclinic Rossby and Kelvin (both boundary and equatorial) waves in the Pacific Ocean is a critical element of the so-called delayed oscillator theory of the El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) [e.g., Schopf and Suarez, 1988; Battisti, 1988; Battisti and Hirst, 1989; Picaut et al., 1997]. In this theory the oscillatory nature of ENSO depends on the efficiency of the reflection of Rossby waves into Kelvin waves at the western boundary of the tropical
Pacific.’ http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/zangetaljgr.pdf

While Rossby and Kelvin waves are implicated in the termination of El Nino events – it explains neither the longer term modulation of ENSO or the longer term period of the PDO.

The question of origins aside – the IPO leads to the most intriguing correlation in climate science.

It suggests two things. That the Pacific Ocean pattern added to warming in the period 1977-1998 and is causing the temperature hiatus since. The second thing it suggests is even more interesting – the abrupt changes between modes suggest tipping points in the coupled ocean/atmospheric Pacific system at decadal scales. This has been numerically explored by Tsonis and colleagues with a network model of ocean and atmospheric indices showing abrupt shifts consistent with synchronized chaos at these times of shifts in Pacific states.

There are interesting questions that emerge from these considerations – especially the link between the low frequency Pacific states, clouds and the global energy budget.

‘Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ AR4 s3.4.4.1

The science seems quite strong – but it is equally something that is vehemently denied by …? What shall we call them and why? I favour sp@ce c@dets – referencing the groupthink involved in spaceship cults.

Climate science suggests the likelihood of non-warming or even cooling over decades hence. As well as an intriguing possibility of a centennial downturn. The refusal by sp@ce c@dets to challenge their memes linked with narratives of catastrophe and the severe philosophy of human and economic limits undermines any reasonable moves to practical and pragmatic mitigation. For another generation at least. Yet the science of synchronized chaos suggests very real risks of abrupt and nonlinear change – in as little as 10 years – from exponentially increasing emissions as economies grow this century. So in terms of policy response – the worst of all possible outcomes seems fairly likely.

We could talk about a multi-gas mitigation strategy that includes development and population considerations and building societal resilience to whatever weather flings at us. But that would require being able to walk and chew gum.

Put this together with the CSALT model and we may have a chance of nailing the warming trend to a gnat’s eyelash — all without having to incorporate GCMs. And longer term, perhaps we can figure out how to predict Wyatt and Curry’s gradual Stadium Wave effect and then we have everything except for the odd volcanic disturbance.

I know that this goes against your agenda of marginalizing all scientific progress, but so be it.

‘It is evident from this paper that even the largest models running on amongst the largest computers
in the world are presently not performing much better
than models that can be run on a desktop computer.
There seems to be no reason why using even faster
computers will do any better than the present day supercomputers unless a fundamental breakthrough is made in understanding the processes that trigger the ENSO events (Eisenman et al., 2005; Kondrashov et al., 2005; Perez et al., 2005; Saynisch et al., 2006; Vecchi et al., 2006). Such an understanding would allow more targeted data collection to drive the models and would focus modifications to dynamical model codes to those processes that matter most. Also, in order to solve the problem of sensitivity to initial conditions, higher quality input data is likely required before significant improvement in the
dynamical model performance can be expected.’

Repeating the same silly claims in the same silly words constitutes proof of one thing alone. The utter superficiality of his approach and the proclivity for nonsensical blogospheric braggodocia.

It makes no difference to the point of the my comment – any valid prediction would include a decade to three more of intense La Nina. His response is merely more obfuscation of the point of the bolded statement in the quote from Vance et al 2012 – these multi-decadal variabilities show up over 1000 years at least and are a robust feature of the climate system.

‘While ENSO-neutral conditions are the safest bet for the next few months, a transition towards El Niño by mid- or late 2014 would not be surprising, perhaps even overdue.’ Claus Wolter – http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/

I was going to the same test – both the timing and intensity. A difficult task at this time of year for lessor mortals.

‘Thus, once an episode has developed in early northern summer, forecasting its evolution through the remainder of its life cycle is not difficult. A much harder task is to forecast what will happen between March and June, when a forecast is being made in the preceding January through April. The difficulty in forecasting at this time of year is often called the “spring barrier” (in the Northern Hemisphere), or the “autumn barrier” (in the Southern Hemisphere).’ http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/background/prediction.html

Perhaps it should say less difficult.

I’d suggest the ‘die’ are biased to La Nina in the current cool decadal mode. Intense and frequent La Nina and less intense and frequent El Nino. A statistical model.

The snipping mania strikes again. The snipped comment related to the inability to question assumptions – and the ability to ignore and deny anomalous information – webbies comment rather proving my point than otherwise.

The snip was certainly less problematic than webby’s standard ‘trash talking’. It was certainly germane to my contention that progressive denialism is the problem.

I do have a tentative model projection using a training interval from 1880 to 2000 and this shows an El Nino peak (maximum negative SOI excursion) in July 2015.

”
No one has shown better than random skill in predicting ENSO beyond three to six months.

……..

It makes no difference to the point of the my comment – any valid prediction would include a decade to three more of intense La Nina.
”

Of course this makes absolutely no sense that the Aussie can claim that (1) no one can predict ENSO beyond 3 months, yet that (2) he has some special skill in being able to project 3 decades into the future and say it is “intense La Nina”.

I hope you understand that the ENSO phenomena is simply an inharmonic oscillation about a zero value, so that long-term planning is a zero-sum game. You design any systems for the mean but anticipate that excursions about that point will occur.

I still find it fascinating that a guy can claim that 3 month predictions are impossible, yet he can project 3 decades into the future based on his own fever dreams.

Long term planning regarding ENSO may be a zero sum game, but if the CA drought lasts another year or another decade makes a mighty big difference for the folks out there.

If it lasts another decade (Ellison guess), they should build billion dollar SWRO plants to fill the gap and cover at least the most urgent demand.

If it only lasts another year (your guess), these investments would be in vain, as it makes no sense to operate SWRO plants if there is water from rainfall/snowfall available at a much lower incremental cost (the Santa Barbara experience).

It appears to me that the folks in San Diego are betting that the current drought will last for a long time to come and are investing with this is mind to be on the safe side.

‘This study uses proxy climate records derived from paleoclimate data to investigate the long-term behaviour of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During the past 400 years, climate shifts associated with changes in the PDO are shown to have occurred with a similar frequency to those documented in the 20th Century. Importantly, phase changes in the PDO have a propensity to coincide with changes in the relative frequency of ENSO events, where the positive phase of the PDO is associated with an enhanced frequency of El Niño events, while the negative phase is shown to be more favourable for the development of La Niña events.’ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL025052/abstract

This is not a difficult concept. I have shown this abstract to webby before – that it fails to register is par for the course. Forecasting individual events is quite difficult – seeing that we in a cool mode and that these persist for 20 to 40 years in the long proxy record is 20/20 hindsight.

manacker, there are a whole bunch of desalination plants in Australia, all mothballed. The state of Victoria built them to supply water to Melbourne, as the climate modelers stated that climate change would mean that rainfall would no longer be enough to supply the cites water needs.
The mothballed costs, including paying off the capital investment, is $650 million a year ($Aus).
California could probably get them cheap

“It doesn’t sum to zero over centuries – as shown in the Vance et al 2012 proxy above – and it doesn’t sum to zero over millennia.”
—–
Wow, a new energy source discovered. Unfortunately, another perpetual motion pipe dream. ENSO activity does not add any net energy to the climate system, so even to discuss what it “sums to” is absurd. Only external forcings can add or subtract energy from the climate system,

ENSO fluctuations do not add any net energy to the climate system. Doesn’t really matter how it fluctuates over any time scale you want to dream up. ENSO displays chaotic internal variability of the system, but not the kind of external forcing on the system, capable of nudging it warmer or cooler.

All the rest is just assumption on gatesy’s part – all of which is inconsistent with available data – which rather proves my point about the inability to question assumptions.

So what does the data say?

‘Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real, they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.’ AR4 s3.4.4.1

There was strong warming in SW (2.4W/m2)between the 80’s and 90’s and cooling (0.5W/m2) in IR. There was an abrupt increase in cloud cover after the turn of the century captured by a couple of methods.

Again – we have been over this endlessly. I have given enough references and data to understand at least what the data says. Firmly believing something else entirely is a sign of something being very wrong indeed.

Seriously – back to warm water upwelling. This relies on the idea that the warm mixed layer is so deep on the eastern margin during an El Nino that cold water can not upwell and we get some wind forced churning of the mixed layer instead.

Randy is of the astonishing opinion that this adds astonishing – but unquantified – volumes of warm water to the surface from warm water deeper in the mixed layer. Like all his narrative enthusiasms this has humungous implications for global climate.

“This relies on the idea that the warm mixed layer is so deep on the eastern margin during an El Nino that cold water can not upwell and we get some wind forced churning of the mixed layer instead.”
—–
The deepening of the thermocline in the E. Pacific during an El Niño is not just an “idea” but a measured and well documented fact. The “churning” is strong upwelling of warm water from above this deepened thermocline. These are facts that most bright Peruvian schoolchildren probably know. How could a Chief Hydrologist not?

“Like all his narrative enthusiasms this has humungous implications for global climate.”
—–
Well of course the ENSO cycle and El Niño events do have huge implications for global climate, but it always good to remember that this is part of that all important energy storage/discharge cycle from the IPWP. The energy in the IPWP is actually the fuel for much of the global weather, continuing the very important theme that the oceans are the dog that wags the atmospheric tail when it comes to both weather and climate.

More distraction, more lies, more insults, more abuse – this rather proves my point than otherwise. An inability to process anomalous information.

Just on one detail. The east-west asymmetry is sea levels and thermocline depth is one of the things that characterizes ENSO. In an El Nino the trade winds falter and warm water piled up against Australia and Indonesia flows eastward. The water hits the eastern boundary deepening the thermocline and preventing upwelling of cold bottom water.

Upwelling and downwelling are wind driven. In an EL Nino upwelling from cold bottom water stops. Instead we have mixing in the mixed layer driven by wind. It is not a mystery.

The science is abundant and points to a major source of climate variability. The IPO added to warming in the 80’s and 90’s – and is causing the hiatus now. This would seem fairly obvious and well accepted – other than by sp@ce c@dets.

Your assertion that ENSO is a zero-sum game on a multi-decadal basis misses the point.

If California (or Australia, for that matter) experiences a drought that lasts for only one decade, this can have serious impacts.

The late 20thC decades of strong El Ninos undoubtedly skewed the global temperature record (not only in the record year 1997/98) – and had impacts on both Australia and California

Several early 21stC decades of strong La Ninas will also affect the global temperature record – and have impacts on regional climates, as CA is already seeing..

The only source of energy for our planet’s climate system is incoming solar radiation (as I’m sure you will agree).

You state that ENSO fluctuations should have no overall effect on Earth’s energy balance, and this appears to make sense at first glance – except that these fluctuations arguably cause a change in cloud cover, which in turn causes more or less of the incoming solar radiation to be reflected out of our climate system back into space.

Remember that a 5% change in cloud cover has more than twice the forcing impact on our climate than all the CO2 we have emitted into the atmosphere since 1750, using the IPCC estimate.

So if you believe that increased CO2 is causing global warming, you must accept that increased cloud cover could cause global cooling.

So ENSO can change not only the global temperature record, but also Earth’s overall energy balance, as it arguably did during the late 20thC cycle of strong El Ninos and is doing more recently since this pattern has shifted to La Ninas.

If your handy-dandy model ignores the impact of clouds, then it is as worthless as the models cited by IPCC to purvey its CAGW message.

The time-series is stationary. It is inharmonic but stationary. I can take a portion of one interval of the time series to recreate a separate portion of the time series. That is a feature of stationary time series.

The ENSO is an inharmonic oscillation of the ocean volume that will continue to oscillate as determined by the physical parameters of the basin.

It is one of the silliest things imaginable to insist that ENSO is not biased to El Nino or La Nina over relevant periods. La Nina dominant to 1976, El Nino to 1998 and La Nina since and for the next decade to three. By coincidence – these are precisely the periods of negative, positive, negative PDO – and – wow – changes in trend in the global temperature record.

Climate science suggests the likelihood of non-warming or even cooling over decades hence. As well as an intriguing possibility of a centennial downturn. The refusal by sp@ce c@dets to challenge their memes linked with narratives of catastrophe and the severe philosophy of human and economic limits undermines any reasonable moves to practical and pragmatic mitigation. For another generation at least. Yet the science of synchronized chaos suggests very real risks of abrupt and nonlinear change – in as little as 10 years – from exponentially increasing emissions as economies grow this century. So in terms of policy response – the worst of all possible outcomes seems fairly likely.

That was and remains the essential point of my original comment – and basin dynamics are merely one aspect of the coupled ocean/atmosphere system. One that starts with cold water moving up from the Southern Ocean to the Peruvian Coast in the Humboldt Current, cold upwelling and wind, cloud and current feedbacks across the Pacific in an evolving La Nina. This is the so-called Pacific normal. One idea is that reflecting Rossby waves destabilize the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool – causing water to slosh back across the Pacific in an El Nino. Another is that La Nina trade winds are disrupted by the Madden-Julian Oscillation resulting in a relaxation in the western Pacific and La Nina reversal.

“You state that ENSO fluctuations should have no overall effect on Earth’s energy balance, and this appears to make sense at first glance – except that these fluctuations arguably cause a change in cloud cover, ”
———
Cloud cover can cause warming or cooling, but like ENSO, is an internal variability and for cloud cover to affect long term gains in energy in the system, must be forced by external variability. Clouds, like ENSO do not add more energy to the system.

“Climate science suggests the likelihood of non-warming or even cooling over decades hence.”
——-
Yes, there may be periods in which we see flat tropospheric temperatures, but actual climate sciences oiled suggest that as long as GHG’s go on increasing via the HCV, the system will continue to accumulate energy. This basic physics and science seems to drive fake-skeptics nuts.

The proposition is that of non-warming – or even cooling – for a decade to three at least as a result of natural variability. The refusal of sp@ce c@dets to question assumptions. The setback to mitigation that will result. All of this the result of progressive science denialism and green overreach.

Cloud cover can cause warming or cooling, but like ENSO, is an internal variability and for cloud cover to affect long term gains in energy in the system, must be forced by external variability. Clouds, like ENSO do not add more energy to the system.

an increase in cloud cover can decrease the radiative forcing entering the ocean,this is especially important in the SO eg WMO 2011(Chapter 4)

The increase in wind speeds over the Southern
Ocean can generate more sea spray and lead to increases
in natural cloud condensation nuclei for the formation of
reflective low clouds in Southern Hemisphere summer
(Korhonen et al., 2010). In a modeling study using observed
wind trends input into an global aerosol model,
Korhonen et al. (2010) find that the Southern Hemisphere
wind trends since the 1980s give rise to a more than 20%
increase in cloud condensation nuclei concentrations in
the50S–65S latitude band and a negative cloud radiative
forcing of −0.7 W/m2. The latter, when added to the
negative radiative forcing from stratospheric ozone loss,
gives an ozone-related regional negative radiative forcing
comparable to the positive radiative forcing

“The proposition is that of non-warming – or even cooling – for a decade to three at least as a result of natural variability.”
____
And when exactly is this suppose to start? It sure has started yet as the system continues to retain energy quite strongly. Just give us a date that you think that global OHC will start falling, sea levels falling, and global glacial masss (especially in Greenland and Antarctica) will start rising. You’ve been talking about this “decade or three” timeframe for so long, you must have some solid science for it. When is it supposed to start? Or are you just selectively once more talking about the troposphere rather than the actual full climate system?

‘However, although the evaluation of global steric height in Fig. 3 is more or less based on the same data base, differences are clearly visible. These differences lead to a large spread of the estimation of global steric trends ranging from nearly 0mm/yr to about 1mm/yr. This simple exercise already shows that a sensitivity study due to data handling is vital…

Comparisons of global steric height 10 trends based on different gridded fields of Argo in situ measurements show a range of 0–1mmyr−1 which can be lead back to data handling and climatology uncertainties. Our results show that GOIs derived from the Argo measurements are ideally suitable to monitor the state of the global ocean, especially after November 2007, i.e. when Argo sampling was 100% complete. They also show that there is significant interannual global variability at global scale, especially for global OFC. Before the end of 2007, error bars are too large to deliver robust short-term trends of GOIs and thus an interpretation in terms of long-term climate signals are still questionable, especially since uncertainties due to interannual fluctuations are not included in our error estimation.’

”
The proposition is that of non-warming – or even cooling – for a decade to three at least as a result of natural variability.
”

What kind of craven schtick is the Aussie engaged in? This is double-talk at its worst. What is a non-warming but a cooling?

It’s like an adviser telling you that an investment could potentially make you “non-money, or even a loss”. You would LAUGH in the guy’s face if he tried to weasel-word it in that way. Or if that financial adviser told you that you would make money in a decade, or 3 decades, or at least 3 decades. After hearing that, who wouldn’t walk away thinking the guy was touched?

Yet, this Aussie character keeps on pulling these kinds of weasel-stunts.

‘A vigorous spectrum of interdecadal internal variability presents numerous challenges to our current understanding of the climate. First, it suggests that climate models in general still have difficulty reproducing the magnitude and spatiotemporal patterns of internal variability necessary to capture the observed character of the 20th century climate trajectory. Presumably, this is due primarily to deficiencies in ocean dynamics. Moving toward higher resolution, eddy resolving oceanic models should help reduce this deficiency. Second, theoretical arguments suggest that a more variable climate is a more sensitive climate to imposed forcings (13). Viewed in this light, the lack of modeled compared to observed interdecadal variability (Fig. 2B) may indicate that current models underestimate climate sensitivity. Finally, the presence of vigorous climate variability presents significant challenges to near-term climate prediction (25, 26), leaving open the possibility of steady or even declining global mean surface temperatures over the next several decades that could present a significant empirical obstacle to the implementation of policies directed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions (27). However, global warming could likewise suddenly and without any ostensive cause accelerate due to internal variability. To paraphrase C. S. Lewis, the climate system appears wild, and may continue to hold many surprises if pressed.’ http://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16120.full

From the many sources I have provided it is clear that what is involved in IPO modes is changes in the frequency and intensity of ENSO events.

‘This study uses proxy climate records derived from paleoclimate data to investigate the long-term behaviour of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During the past 400 years, climate shifts associated with changes in the PDO are shown to have occurred with a similar frequency to those documented in the 20th Century. Importantly, phase changes in the PDO have a propensity to coincide with changes in the relative frequency of ENSO events, where the positive phase of the PDO is associated with an enhanced frequency of El Niño events, while the negative phase is shown to be more favourable for the development of La Niña events.’ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2005GL025052/abstract

So while we may get an El Nino this year – the odds are stacked in favour of less frequent and smaller El Nino and more frequent and larger La Nina for decades to come.

‘Abstract. El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant mode of climate variability in the Pacific, having socio-economic impacts on surrounding regions. ENSO exhibits significant modulation on decadal to inter-decadal time scales which is related to changes in its characteristics (onset, amplitude, frequency, propagation, and predictability). Some of these characteristics tend to be overlooked in ENSO studies, such as its asymmetry (the number and amplitude of warm and cold events are not equal) and the deviation of its statistics from those of the Gaussian distribution. These properties could be related to the ability of the current generation of coupled models to predict ENSO and its modulation.

Here, ENSO’s non-Gaussian nature and asymmetry are diagnosed from in situ data and a variety of models (from intermediate complexity models to full-physics coupled general circulation models (CGCMs)) using robust statistical tools initially designed for financial mathematics studies. In particular α-stable laws are used as theoretical background material to measure (and quantify) the non-Gaussian character of ENSO time series and to estimate the skill of “naïve” statistical models in producing deviation from Gaussian laws and asymmetry. The former are based on non-stationary processes dominated by abrupt changes in mean state and empirical variance. It is shown that the α-stable character of ENSO may result from the presence of climate shifts in the time series. Also, cool (warm) periods are associated with ENSO statistics having a stronger (weaker) tendency towards Gaussianity and lower (greater) asymmetry. This supports the hypothesis of ENSO being rectified by changes in mean state through nonlinear processes. The relationship between changes in mean state and nonlinearity (skewness) is further investigated both in the Zebiak and Cane (1987)’s model and the models of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC). Whereas there is a clear relationship in all models between ENSO asymmetry (as measured by skewness or nonlinear advection) and changes in mean state, they exhibit a variety of behaviour with regard to α-stability. This suggests that the dynamics associated with climate shifts and the occurrence of extreme events involve higher-order statistical moments that cannot be accounted for solely by nonlinear advection.’

‘The “science” that supports the man made climate change theories make a mockery of real science’

Where is the science wrong? There is little doubt that the 1910 to 1940 temperature rise was man-made. But the subsequent fall in global average temperature is more difficult to explain, except by the still-cold oceans which also explains the 1970 to 1997 rise,
and vibration mode changes in CO2..

So there is some truth in what the IPCC has stumbled on, but for the wrong reasons. The IPCC never learned from the 1910 to 1940 rise, but why should they? remember the ‘science was settled’!

The ‘greenhouse gas’ theory is the catch-all for everything. It is obviously only an analogy, but is trotted out as scientific proof.

Thank you , Beth, for your reply. After all, history is more literature than science. It is hard to be completely objective when writing about science. If you are, It turns out to be a mere recital of facts and no one will read it.

I really wonder what the reaction would be amongst the denizens here and the rest of humanity would be if a sizable section of the medical research establishment came out and said quite openly that on the basis of modeled health and medical conclusions they were 97% certain that they had the complete handle on every medical condition experienced by mankind and it was all due to just one significant factor that they had definitely beyond doubt, defined as the critical factor in controlling the health status of mankind.
Or lawyers who claimed that they had developed a universal set of laws based entirely on some models which they claimed were applicable to all of mankind.
From which they then demanded those artificially modeled laws in every detail should be enforced on our entire race regardless of circumstance, and cultural practices and the historical factors that have shaped all of our tribes and races through out all of past history.

This same argument could be repeated through every profession in our modern society and the reaction by the man in the street would be similar in every case, just what the hell and who the hell does these arrogant whack jobs think they are to try and force this onto us.

So why should science and scientists assume they are different and not subject to the same judgments for their claims and actions and are required to fully justify without question their claims just as every other profession or section of society has to before their claims are implemented in even a minor way?
Scientists, particularly climate scientists are collectively no better and no worse nor more informed nor smarter or dumber but some at least are increasingly seen as just as stupid as has been so obviously demonstrated by the statements of a whole gamut of climate scientists themselves over the last few years, as anybody else in any other profession or sector of our society.

Time for scientists to get real and recognise their limits and that they are no more unique or different or more important or smarter or have more rights to inflict their personal and collective beliefs onto society than any other section of society and then start to act accordingly.

Food crop plant breeders, water and sewerage engineers, power plant engineers, civil engineers, doctors and etc could be and increasingly are being classed by the peons far down there below the ivory towers as far more important than any collection of climate scientists.
Those professions above have done a damn sight more for humanity in constructive contributions over the last couple of hundred years than any collection of hundreds or thousands of climate scientists have ever done.

And judging on present performances of climate scientists are likely to continue doing so for the next few decades at the very least.

So, let’s look at this first. Do ENSO effects explain the stasis? So, what we did is we used some iterative regression-based method to remove ENSO effects. Turns out you have got to be a little careful because there’s co-linearity between ENSO and Volcanos. And that matters over this period of record.

I wondered about that too. I’ll be very interested to see the upcoming paper on volcanic aerosols. Also, there are reductions in sensible and latent heat from the ocean that can occur in the Pacific that would not be caught by simply removing ENSO.

If ‘little’ volcanoes have a large cooling effect, due to SO2 and particulates, then calculating the effects of the effects,on the Northern Hemisphere, of the clean air acts, the SO2 scrubbers, the particulate traps and the cleaning up of post-Soviet industry is going to be huge.The differential northern/southern warming observed since the late 50’s could all be due to the cleaning up of industry, if Saner is right about the cooling effect of aerosols.

“The differential northern/southern warming observed since the late 50′s could all be due to the cleaning up of industry, if Saner is right about the cooling effect of aerosols.”
—–
Nice try Doc, but anthropogenic and natural volcanic aerosols have dramatically different cooling effects owing to their composition and the altitude of atmosphere they operate in.

Look at the actual Mauna Loa Atmospheric Transmission Data from 1958 through 2014: The volcanic “peaks” in 1963-1964, 1982, 1992 are specific, real, and very proiminent. But, since 1994?
NOTHING. Dead flat. Any “theory” talking about “theoretical” volcanic or “modeled” aerosol influences needs to reconcile a 60 year atmosphere clarity record that shows “nothing” has changed the past 20 years.

Victor’s talk was jarring in his repeated use of the “denialist” label even while disclaiming its appropriateness. Also, it was weird to read a political scientist going on about how he himself is a part of the mainstream scientific community on global climate–it isn’t clear given his dismissive reference to “hobbyists” whether he counts himself more qualified than these “hobbyists” to have an independent opinion on the subject. Furthermore, I would like to know whether he would call people like Nic Lewis or Steve McIntyre “hobbyists” or “skeptics.”

Despite these flaws, though, I thought Victor delivered a useful message to the heathen Urgent Mitigationists about the unpalatability and impracticality of the nostrums they have already pushed and those they propose for the future. And he did a good job of explaining why the consensus obsession and hunt for evil funding obsession are counterproductive.

• France’s nationally-averaged January 2014 temperature was 2.7°C (4.9°F) above the 1981–2010 average, tying with 1988 and 1936 as the warmest January on record.

• Spain experienced its warmest January since 1996 and the third warmest since national records began in 1961, with a temperature of 9°C (48.2°F) or 2°C (3.6°F) above the 1971–2000 average.

• The January temperature in Switzerland was 2.4°C (4.3°F) above the 1981–2010 average—the fifth warmest January since national records began 150 years ago.

• Austria experienced its fifth warmest January since national records began in 1768. The nationally-averaged temperature was 3.3°C (5.9°F) above the 1981–2010 average. However, in some regions across the southern parts of the country, the temperatures were the highest on record. In Klagenfurt, the temperature departure was 5°C (9°F)—the highest since January 1813.

• China, as a whole, recorded an average temperature of -3.4°C (25.9°F) or 1.6°C (2.9°F) above average during January 2014. This was the second highest January value, behind 2002, since national records began in 1961.

• In Argentina, persistence of extremely high temperatures across central and northern parts of the country resulted in several locations setting new maximum, minimum, and mean temperature records for the month of January.

• Warm temperatures engulfed much of Australia during January 2014. Overall, the national average mean temperature was 0.91°C (1.64°F) above the 1961–1990 average. This was the 12th highest January temperature since national records began in 1910. Regionally, the January 2014 temperature ranked among the top 10 warmest in Queensland, Victoria, and South Australia.

how many countries in the world – World Atlas
Many sources offer different answers, and depending on the source, there are 189, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195 or 196 independent countries in the world today.
A proper approach to this would be to not cherry pick WHT, but you cannot help it.
Perhaps , since you’ve researched it, you could put the rankings out on all 189,196 countries, whatever.
But since you have chosen only the worst, one has to assume that they are indeed the only high outliers and the rest of the world was colder this January.
And, if that is the case, I hope you can lie straight in bed at night knowing you have done your best in propaganda for the cause.
A for effort.

“In Klagenfurt, the temperature departure was 5°C (9°F)—the highest since January 1813.”

Postulating for a moment that the temperatures you posted are accurate, they prove what relative to the question at hand: Is ACO2 causing the TOE to rise precipitously?

In the example quoted, the Jan 1813 temperature, when total CO2 was much lower than today and there was essentially NO ACO2 component, was at least as high (You didn’t supply the Jan 1813 value.) as Jan 2014, yet you cite the warm 2014 data as proof that atmospheric CO2 is the dominant influence in the TOE and therefore that adding ACO2 poses an existential threat? Also, the previous record was 1813, meaning that while CO2 was rising monotonically for 200 years, the January temperature in Klagenfurt for all 200 of them remained at or below 1813 (and maybe remains below, since you didn’t supply the figure for 1813). If anything, it proves that CO2, anthropogenic or otherwise, has little or no influence on the TOE, or at least the temperature of Klagenfurt, relative to other variables that influence climate.

From the article:
…
What exactly is the one per cent’s problem with cheap energy, scientific evidence and free market capitalism?

The question is raised yet again with news that hedge fund billionaire turned environmental activist Tom Steyer wants to make “climate change” a key issue in the 2014 midterm elections by funding a $100 million ad push.

Half the money will come from his own pocket, funneled through his San-Francisco-based NextGen Climate Action group; half from fellow liberal billionaires.

As the HuffPo salivatingly reports, this is part of Steyer’s ongoing masterplan to turn the US greener than a green-themed St Patrick’s Day party thrown by Shrek, Kermit the Frog, and the Jolly Green Giant.
…
Who, for example, was behind the Obama administration’s master-plan to revive the US economy through the creation of “green jobs”?

Why it was none other than billionaire George Soros, via his Center For American Progress, which he funds to the tune of $27 million a year. (Along with numerous other environmentalist causes ranging from funding the hard-left Tides Foundation to his $14 billion green private equity firm Silver Lake, which he set up with Obama’s former Energy Czar Cathy Zoi).

And who pays for Britain’s most influential environmental propaganda outlets, the Grantham Research Institute and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change?

From the article:
The Chinese auto conglomerate Wanxiang Group has bought electric automaker Fisker Automotive, marking the second time they snatched up a failed green firm that received taxpayer dollars.

The bankrupt Fisker was sold to Wanxiang last week for $149.2 million and the sale was approved by the bankruptcy court on Tuesday. Last year, the Energy Department’s $192 million loan of Fisker was sold of to Wanxiang for $25 million — netting taxpayers a $139 million loss.

This is the second time a green energy company that got a loan guarantee from the Obama administration was sold off to Chinese investors, garnering criticism from conservatives that hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted for the benefit of foreign businessmen.

“Honorable mention to Joe Biden (plagiarized his way through law school..”

Come on Gary. There’s so much low hanging fruit courtesy of the alarmists, you don’t have to make crap up. One incident that I can find anyway…does not equate to cheating his way through.

I find myself holding skeptics to a higher standard and am regularly disappointed to one degree or another. (Hell I disappoint myself too, especially for getting into futile arguments with trolls like JOshua.) Willis is in fine form over at WUWt, once again somehow missing the key point that the blog post he’s savagely castigating Revkin for, was actually a guest post. Of course now he’s saying he knew it all along. Last week he managed to get his “quote of the week” wrong.

To tell you the truth, to get back to Biden, I think managing to actually plagiarize one’s way through law school would be quite an achievement.

Smokin’ Joe is such a joke that the fact he got through law school at all amazes me. Not that you have to be a genius. But he seriously makes me pray that nothing bad happens to Obama while they are in office.

From the article:
Birds, sharks and unexploded bombs from World War II are being blamed for holding up offshore wind farms, raising doubts about the costs of the technology.

Three utilities yesterday scrapped an expansion of the world’s biggest offshore wind farm in the Thames estuary, east of London. That capped three months when each of the six largest U.K. utilities retreated from marine energy projects.

While developer EON SE highlighted concerns about disrupting the wintering grounds of the red-throated diver, the broader threat to the industry is its failure to bring down costs quickly enough in nations that are increasingly concerned about the price of electricity.

“It’s either the cost because of the technical challenges or the environmental issues” that’s thwarting projects, Keith Anderson, chief executive officer of Iberdrola SA’s ScottishPower Renewables unit, said in an interview. “There’s a bit of realism that unless we can deliver these projects for a lower price, then it’s unrealistic to expect to continue to get political and government support.”
…http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-20/offshore-wind-industry-thwarted-by-birds-bombs-sharks.html

On a happier note for me, Antarctic ice extent has reached it’s lowest and is on the way back up early with a 600,000 positive square kilometer excess intact
You can see that small island of water that appears each year did not break through this year and should rapidly fill up.
The Arctic with its much heavier volume of multi year ice refuses to spread out in area due to current incoming warm currents but should be raisin soon. Sultana I can live long enough to see it, should be a big increase in the next 2 months [Only ,of course, if enough warmists deny it].
Come on guys, Don’t let the big Arctic refreeze down.

Reading the minutes of the recent APS meeting, there was much talk associated with the so-called dipole (thermal, I assume) between the temperatures of the troposphere and the stratosphere. The troposphere is getting hotter and the stratosphere, colder and this is not understood.

Several years ago I pointed out in these columns that this could be a consequence of concentrations of CO2 emissions of hot gases from tailpipes and chimneys, clustered together and rising in the troposphere like hot air balloons. Why could this be important? Because it could establish plumes Of CO2 in vibration modes where the can absorb more radiation than cold CO2 and so increase heat absorption in the troposphere. If this were so, we would expect this to occur more in the Northern hemisphere than the southern, simply because where most waste heat is generated.. If this is accepted then it might be true that cold well mixed CO2 in the atmosphere is less of a threat than the hot stuff, reversing the common preference that ‘some like it hot’.

Reiner Grundman has a good post at Die Klimazweibel entitled Why do smart people disagree about facts? Grundman discusses and contrasts recent talks by social scientists Dan Kahan and David Victor. Summary statement:

As a skeptic, I had the following recent revelation about concerned eco folks thought:

You can’t easily get rid of the CO2 in the atmosphere. There is always more of it, and it’s going to inexorably increase temperatures. Dealing with this problem tomorrow is going to be harder than dealing with it today, and humans keep on ignorantly adding to it.

If you believe this, it has to be a pretty horrifying position to be in. You can’t do anything about it, you are certain bad things will happen, and the world is not going to stop no matter what you do.

“under pressure from denialists we in the scientific community have spent too much time talking about consensus. That approach leads us down a path that, at the end, is fundamentally unscientific and might even make us more vulnerable to attack, including attack from our own.”
I’d call this a semi-epiphany which I suppose is better than nothing. Bogus consensus mongering isn’t only unscientific once it has taken you down some path that ends somewhere, the path itself is unscientific, all of it.

Economist Andrew Lilico’s line in the Telegraph is that, if AGW is occurring and it we should be concerned about its impacts, then the policies pursued in the last 25 years – aimed at reducing emissions, with a high cost per unit reduced – have actually worsened the situation. If we had followed growth-promoting policies instead, not only would we be much better off, but our capacity to deal with any adverse effects of warming would be greater than it is.

He further argues that growth-promoting policies now are still the best approach, whether or not AGW is real and dangerous. I have to agree, as I have long argued on similar lines.

Such argument seems to have passed by a number of those linked to by Judith. The argument is in effect that costly measures to reduce emissions will have a negligible impact on future temperatures, and therefore that those concerned about potential warming (of whom few are policy-oriented economists) have driven policy in a harmful direction. If they are genuinely concerned, they will find that the best response is not futile attempts to reduce emissions, but following growth policies which increase our capacity to deal with the future, whatever befalls.

From a policy viewpoint, this is far more important than arguments on climate science.

David, more rapid economic growth would imply faster rate of fossil fuel emissions growth. It would also, of course, increase resources available for researching alternatives.

There have been many posts here stating that if all of the reserves of fossil fuel known were used up, CO2 concentrations would reach a particular level – I think that 800 ppm has been suggested – setting a limit on warming. It has also been argued that the worst effects would arise in the very long term, a century or three. That suggests to me that it wouldn’t make a lot of difference whether we reached the limit a bit earlier (through faster growth) or a bit later (through slower growth). If the impact of emissions reduction policies is to slow reaching the limit a bit, or, e.g. through sequestration etc, reduce the limit a bit, we are at worst trading off against those impacts. My impression is that, even if AGW continues, policies to reduce the rate of emissions or their ultimate total will make little effect on the impact (which might or might not be harmful). Lilico argues that measures to date have had little impact at high cost; there’s been plenty of supporting evidence here and elsewhere. I can’t see how the impact would become “overwhelming” if economic growth were accelerated, I can see how our capacity to deal with the future – whatever it is – has been reduced by policies in place and would be further reduced by their continuance or intensification. In practice, some populaces and some governments seem to be coming round to that view. The incurred and prospective costs seem to many to be too high for speculative estimates of potential damage in the distant future (of course, there could be argument about how well informed those views are).

Yes, it certainly seems true to me that the “97%” stuff is meant either to establish a questionable “consensus” or to enforce one socially. Readers of Judith’s blog might remember a few months ago I recounted being at a small party where, because some of my friends were present, I let my guard down.

My friend had just commented that sea levels were going to rise by 3 feet by 2060. I said that that was unlikely, as during the Eemian, a warmer interglacial than our own, Greenland was 8 degrees warmer than now for over 6,000 years, and lost only 1/4 of its ice in that time period. I characterized this as good news, as if that could have saved my butt on this occasion. (If Greenland melted totally, it would contribute about 7.2 meters to sea level rise, so the 1/4 would be less than 2 meters of sea level rise, thus would be about 3 millimeters per century: 2 meters = 20 cm = 200 mm, divided by 60 centuries, = 3.2 mm per century; see link below for press on the study.)

Anyway, I didn’t say anything to dispute the notion that CO2 (and methane, etc.) warm the climate, I only mentioned sea level. But everyone reacted as if I had attacked the theory of global warming, and attacked me on many of the supposed terrible things that would happen. I reacted pretty calmly to each one, but the issue was how people reacted: they though that disputing anything, even something pretty crazy, was an attack on the theory itself.

I won’t recount all the back and forth again, but at the end, a man who had been introduced to me as a former diplomat was wagging his finger in my face, telling me that 97% of scientists disagreed with me. Even though I hadn’t disputed the basic notion of greenhouse warming, which supposedly is what the 97% is about. I wound the spool back, told him that the only thing I had said was that there was good news, that sea levels were not going to rise by 3 feet in 47 years, since Greenland will contribute only a millimeter or two in that time frame, and that this was unquestionably good news.

So, yeah, the 97% figure is meant to give people who believe in the religion of warming, that mankind is once again destroying the garden of eden but who don’t bother to read or understand the science, yeah, it gives them ammunition against people that actually try to understand things, it gives then a cudgel to bludgeon folks like us. As I think it was was meant to do.

“But despite the warm temperatures, the ice sheet did not disappear and the research team estimates that the volume of the ice sheet was not reduced by more than 25 percent during the warmest 6,000 years of the Eemian.”

Double click on the figure to see the 6,000 years of temps 8 degrees or so higher than today.

When I was going for my Ph. D. at Berkeley in 1958, my research advisor’s favorite rant was about scientists who could “explain” everything after the fact but predict nothing. Today, we have a cult of climate scientists who religiously believe that rising CO2 is driving up earth temperatures continuously, and every time there is a “pause” (Like 1940-1976 or 1998-2014) they come up with an explanation after the fact that they never were able to predict in the first place. Some of these explanations might have some merit, but nevertheless, we must conclude: (1) other phenomena outside the scope of greenhouse gases affect climate to a significant degree, and rising CO2 is not the sole arbiter of climate, (2) some of these may be induced by human activity (e.g. aerosols) and some not (e.g. La Ninas, changes in cloud cover, …), (3) climate scientists don’t seem to be able to predict these effects, (4) the future will likely bring further increases in earth average temperature, (5) but we still can’t quantify how earth temperatures change in response to rising CO2 concentrations.

For those with an interest in the coming Supreme Court argument at 10:00 am Monday morning US East Coast time on the legal challenges to the U.S. Government’s authority to regulate emissions of greenhouse gases from industrial facilities under existing legislation, Scotusblog.com has a useful neutral summary of the context and legal issues here – http://www.scotusblog.com/2014/02/argument-preview-curbing-greenhouse-gases/.

The question presented for argument is as follows:

“Whether EPA permissibly determined that its regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles triggered permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act for stationary sources.”

“Stationary sources” include power plants and large factories (“such as steel mills”) – fixed sources, not vehicles.

As always, Scotusblog will post a copy of the full transcript of the oral argument by the afternoon at http://www.scotusblog.com.

A brief filed by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and other House Republicans say the regulations in question are “an intolerable invasion of Congress’s domain that threatens to obliterate the line dividing executive from legislative power.” . . .
“The agency has been expansively construing its legal authorities under the Clean Air Act, and this ever-growing web of regulations has the potential to be the most complex, far-reaching and expensive in the agency’s history,” said Whitfield, who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on Energy and Power.

Dec 9, 2013 – New data from Antarctica shows region sets new record for coldest . on 31 July of this year, it came close again: -92.9C (-135.3F)
Jan 7, 2014 – The frigid air that set records across the Midwest, stopping trains and … may deliver the coldest day across the U.S. in almost 20 years by a ..
1934 – hottest year on record
Steve McIntyre noticed a strange discontinuity in US temperature data, occurring around January 2000. McIntyre notified NASA which acknowledged the problem as an ‘oversight’ that would be fixed in the next data refresh. As a result, “The warmest year on US record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place.” (Daily Tech).
just cherry picking like FOMD

The England et al paper analyzing how energy in trade winds is compensating the temperature rise and contributing to the pause. Other papers by Sander and by Schmidt claim that volcanic aerosols could do the same but this effect appears much smaller. See the CSALT model for the contribution of free energy factors.
The Cause of the Pause is due to Thermodynamic Laws.

The ‘climate parasite’ name from American Thinker is insteresting. From a cultural evolution viewpoint, it looks quite possible that CAGW could be a parasitcial cultural entity, and that entity appears to be very distanced from anything actually happening (or not) in the climate. See The CAGW Memeplex.

You may notice that WHT said “I don’t think the volcanic aerosols play much of a factor in explaining the pause.” You can disagree with him as much as you like.

I don’t disagree at all, neither do Santer et al. Their results indicate only a small difference between model runs with and without taking into account these observed changes in stratospheric aerosols. But a difference nonetheless.

You then mention warming of the oceans below 700m, which is factually incorrect…. I could as equally say that there is cooling of the oceans below 700 m apart from the very slight warming in the 700-2000 m. please prove me wrong

It’s the warming between 700m to 2000m which I’m talking about, as are others (e.g. England et al. 2014). Talking about the situation below 2000m is potentially relevant to the overall point but is not necessary, and as you say it isn’t well sampled. The point is that, over the past several years, a greater proportion of accumulating energy in the Pacific has been mixed down to deeper layers of the ocean which means there is a reduced proportion of energy to warm the surface, hence surface temperatures warm slower than they would in “normal” conditions.

Strong warming in the Arctic is fatuous. There has been much more ice in the Arctic in the last year.

The UAH analysis finds 2013 was the coldest year in the Arctic since the early 2000s, and I suspect Cowtan and Way would show similar, so an increase in sea ice is expected. Not sure how that makes Arctic warming over the previous decade fatuous.

Like the USA, there is strong cooling in the USA. What a great argument!

Again, you’ve completely missed the point. The “hiatus” concept comes from comparisons between surface temperature records and model simulations. The most often used surface temperature record for such comparisons has been HadCRUT3 and now HadCRUT4. HadCRUT4 filled in some gaps in coverage but it still misses out most of the Arctic. The point isn’t that “somewhere is warming!”, it’s that somewhere is warming rapidly and the records we’re typically using to represent global temperatures don’t include that somewhere.

” changes to trade winds” please explain are they faster causing global warming or slower causing global warming, there are 2 papers which contradict but you do know this.

I suspect you’re talking about England et al. 2014 and Vecchi et al. 2006 since that’s been a meme lately. However, again you’ve got it completely wrong. Vecchi et al. are tracking the long term (centennial) trend in trade winds while England et al. are specifically looking at the past couple of decades. There’s no inconsistency here.

Each time you pick a new one you invalidate all your previous arguments.

Wrong. Each of the ones I mentioned in my earlier response are independent. Increases in stratospheric aerosols don’t go away because current modes of internal variability favour reduced surface warming. Neither does the weaker Sun magically stop being weak because some other independent factor tends to cause cooling at the same time.

In the early 20th century we had significant volcanic excursions injecting around 2 orders of magnitude more sulphate into the stratosphere.( 2 of the largest eruptions in the last 200 yrs)Where are they?ie no pause.

Look at the actual Mauna Loa Atmospheric Transmission Data from 1958 through 2014: The volcanic “peaks” in 1963-1964, 1982, 1992 are specific, real, and very proiminent. But, since 1994?

NOTHING. Dead flat. Any “theory” talking about “theoretical” volcanic or “modeled” aerosol influences needs to reconcile a 60 year atmosphere clarity record that shows “nothing” has changed the past 20 years.That same plot that shows three very distinct, very characteristic volcanic events in the past, shows exactly NONE the past 20 years. Worse, it doesn’t even show a decline or any decrease at all.

Attributing this increase to volcanic activity is a hypothesis with some evidential backing, which provides a theoretical framework for understanding the observed increase. However, this theoretical framework is independent of the observation. For example, the Hoffmann paper I linked preferred a different explanation.

I don’t think the volcanivc aerosols play much of a factor in explaining the pause.

The CSALT model uses a flat near-zero contribution of volcanic aerosols in line with the estimates of the last 20 years and still produces a pause. This is due to naturally varying thermodynamic factors such as ENSO as parameterized by SOI.

Why in the world does Santer only mention human-caused changes in clouds and not naturally-caused ones?

Seems silly to me, when we know that natural shifts in ENSO (plus PDO, AMO, etc.) cause changes in cloud cover and we have seen that cloud cover (and resulting albedo) have changed significantly (increasing cloud cover over the late 20thC and decreasing since around 2000).

That’s basically the conclusion of the Santer paper too: only a minor difference between models with and without these small volcanic influences.

BTW, I was interested by your ENSO prediction setup. Have you seen this mini-site for NOAA’s ENSO prediction services? Near the end of the Weekly update pdf they show prediction attempts from dozens of statistical and physical models. It has to be said they typically aren’t very good.

PS, yes I have seen that site, thanks.
The ensemble prediction is trending toward El Nino later this year. It will peak by middle of next year is my prediction.
But you are correct that there is quite a bit of variance in the multiple estimates.

WebHubTelescope (@whut) | February 24, 2014 at 2:06 pm I don’t think the volcanic aerosols play much of a factor in explaining the pause.
You tell them WHT, and why.
It’s very important.
If the Volcanoes explain the pause then the deep heat trapped in the sea is no longer real, is it ? [ cue in Mr Gates? no, sorry, clue in Mr Gates]
Because if volcanoes cause a pause, the Deeep sea trapped heat cannot exist or it would have become colder.
Other aerosols cannot have an effect.
The fast/ slow Trade winds cannot have an effect.
Every other excuse eg Way and Cowtan cannot be right.
Because if volcanoes do it, all the other rubbish spouted by every warmist here for the last 5 years doesn’t exist
Heck C Salt won’t exist. Cannot have that WHT can we.
Judith, is there a message here that the more alibi’s one tries the less reliable the understanding behind the science is?

Most of the things to which you refer are independently observed: stratospheric aerosol increases, changes to trade winds, warming of the oceans below 700m, strong warming in the Arctic. Being independently observed means their existence, assuming the observations are correct, doesn’t rely on any external theory or any other observations. Therefore your insistence that all of these things can’t be happening at the same time doesn’t work – we can see them happening at the same time.

Paul S
Your comment is redolent of Warmer Primer 101.
You may notice that WHT said “I don’t think the volcanic aerosols play much of a factor in explaining the pause.” You can disagree with him as much as you like.
You then mention warming of the oceans below 700m, which is factually incorrect. We have some arguable data on 700-2000 m which shows some warming but no reliable data under 2000 m HENCE the claim that the heat is missing, Trenberth?. If it could be measured it would not be missing. I could as equally say that there is cooling of the oceans below 700 m apart from the very slight warming in the 700-2000 m. please prove me wrong., Strong warming in the Arctic is fatuous. There has been much more ice in the Arctic in the last year. Check Piomas figures and tell me if ice freezes when it gets warmer. Otherwise you have a model, not statistics for warming in the Arctic [Cowtan and Way which might be extremely dubious].
And anecdotally it has been warmer in Iceland in the past.
pick any area of the world for your Arctic is warmer argument and I will pick an area that shows strong cooling. Like the USA, there is strong cooling in the USA. What a great argument!
” changes to trade winds” please explain are they faster causing global warming or slower causing global warming, there are 2 papers which contradict but you do know this.
The message is that possibly 8 different explanations of the pause have been given. Now we have a 9th.
Each time you pick a new one you invalidate all your previous arguments.
And in doing so you make the whole CO2 argument/AGW fall over.
Instead of 1 reason for the pause you now have to find 9 to stop runaway global warming.
How lucky are we to have all 9 mechanisms working to save us from boiling.

You may notice that WHT said “I don’t think the volcanic aerosols play much of a factor in explaining the pause.” You can disagree with him as much as you like.

I don’t disagree at all, neither do Santer et al. Their results indicate only a small difference between model runs with and without taking into account these observed changes in stratospheric aerosols. But a difference nonetheless.

You then mention warming of the oceans below 700m, which is factually incorrect…. I could as equally say that there is cooling of the oceans below 700 m apart from the very slight warming in the 700-2000 m. please prove me wrong

It’s the warming between 700m to 2000m which I’m talking about, as are others (e.g. England et al. 2014). Talking about the situation below 2000m is potentially relevant to the overall situation but is not necessary, and as you say it isn’t well sampled. The point is that, over the past several years, a greater proportion of accumulating energy in the Pacific has been mixed down to deeper layers of the ocean which means there is a reduced proportion of energy to warm the surface, hence surface temperatures warm slower than they would in “normal” conditions.

Strong warming in the Arctic is fatuous. There has been much more ice in the Arctic in the last year.

The UAH analysis finds 2013 was the coldest year in the Arctic since the early 2000s, and I suspect Cowtan and Way would show similar, so an increase in sea ice is expected. Not sure how that makes Arctic warming over the previous decade fatuous.

Like the USA, there is strong cooling in the USA. What a great argument!

Again, you’ve completely missed the point. The “hiatus” concept comes from comparisons between surface temperature records and model simulations. The most often used surface temperature record for such comparisons has been HadCRUT3 and now HadCRUT4. HadCRUT4 filled in some gaps in coverage but it still misses out most of the Arctic. The point isn’t that “somewhere is warming!”, it’s that somewhere is warming rapidly and the records we’re typically using to represent global temperatures don’t include that somewhere.

” changes to trade winds” please explain are they faster causing global warming or slower causing global warming, there are 2 papers which contradict but you do know this.

I suspect you’re talking about England et al. 2014 and Vecchi et al. 2006 since that’s been a meme lately. However, again you’ve got it completely wrong. Vecchi et al. are tracking the long term (centennial) trend in trade winds while England et al. are specifically looking at the past couple of decades. There’s no inconsistency here.

Each time you pick a new one you invalidate all your previous arguments.

Wrong. Each of the ones I mentioned in my earlier response are independent. Increases in stratospheric aerosols don’t go away because current modes of internal variability favour reduced surface warming. Neither does the weaker Sun magically stop being weak because some other independent factor tends to cause cooling at the same time.

The problem with angech is that she has both (1) ALL the answers and (2) claims that the science is too difficult to analyze.

How can these be simultaneously true?

She said “prove me wrong” yet elsewhere in this comment thread she said “natural climate and temperature fluctuations are the norm and chaotic enough to be beyond the scope of our current understanding”.

Telling someone to prove them wrong indicates that they have an understanding of what is happening, but which is directly contradicted by the whining (i.e. it’s too hard) exhibited in the other comment.

You may notice that WHT said “I don’t think the volcanic aerosols play . ” I don’t disagree at all with WHT, neither do Santer et al.”
Exactly, but then all 3 of you are disagreeing with the latest cause with Mosher stating that it is all due to volcanic aerosols and CO2.

‘You then mention warming of the oceans below 700ms
It’s the warming between 700m to 2000m which I’m talking about,” I’m sorry but you did not specify and restrict it in your previous post which was misleading.

Strong warming in the Arctic is fatuous. There has been much more ice in the Arctic in the last year.

‘The UAH analysis finds 2013 was the coldest year in the Arctic since the early 2000s, and I suspect Cowtan and Way would show similar [in a blue moon] “, so an increase in sea ice is expected. Not sure how that makes Arctic warming over the previous decade fatuous.”
Some people, not Eli for sure, would say that the Arctic has been much warmer in Viking times for a lot longer than 10 years which is why talk of current warming for only 10 years might be considered fatuous.

“Again, you’ve completely missed the point. The “hiatus” concept comes from comparisons between surface temperature records and model simulations. ”
No the hiatus concept comes form the fact that all the data sets show a hiatus. The models, apart from being hilariously wrong in this regard , are irrelevant.

changes to trade winds please explain are they faster causing global warming or slower causing global warming, there are 2 papers which contradict but you do know this.

“I suspect you’re talking about England et al. 2014 and Vecchi et al. 2006 ” Correct.
“[ However, again you’ve got it completely wrong. Vecchi et al. are tracking the long term (centennial) trend in trade winds while England et al. are specifically looking at the past couple of decades. There’s no inconsistency here.”
Choke, splutter, cough. I understand the two studies overlap considerably as Vecchi’s article tracks up to 2006 showing the winds slowing down and England 2014 comments on the last 2 decades which must go back to 1993 and says they are speeding up.
One study up to 2006 says getting slower for 100 years and more so now. The other study says since 1993 getting faster. Both as a cause of cooling! Now which bit of “There’s no inconsistency here.” don’t you want to understand .

Each time you pick a new one you invalidate all your previous arguments.

“Wrong. Each of the ones I mentioned in my earlier response are independent. Increases in stratospheric aerosols don’t go away because current modes of internal variability favour reduced surface warming. Neither does the weaker Sun magically stop being weak because some other independent factor tends to cause cooling at the same time”.

please don’t invoke the skeptic arguments of a weaker sun and natural variability.
If volcanic aerosols, fast and slow trade winds, missing heat in the depths of the ocean, Cowtan and Way’s pathetic arctic warmth, the CO2 GHE , the droughts/floods /wet/dry/extreme but missing in number climate event events are all dissed by natural variability and the sun what are we worrying about.

I’m pretty sure when Mosher is talking about it ‘all being volcanoes and CO2′ he’s talking about the changes over the past 150-200 years, not the past 10-15 years.

Some people, not Eli for sure, would say that the Arctic has been much warmer in Viking times for a lot longer than 10 years which is why talk of current warming for only 10 years might be considered fatuous.

Eli, is that you engaging in some casual trolling? I suspect Eli, as well as anyone else paying attention, would say referencing warmth in ‘Viking times’ during a discussion which is specifically about trends over the past 10-15 years would be considered fatuous.

No the hiatus concept comes form the fact that all the data sets show a hiatus. The models, apart from being hilariously wrong in this regard , are irrelevant.

Well, you’re behind the times there. Our host has recently stated that Cowtan & Way, even if entirely correct, makes no difference to “the hiatus”. Now, Cowtan & Way find a trend over the standard “hiatus” period of 0.12ºC/Decade. Do you consider 0.12ºC warming to represent a hiatus?

I understand the two studies overlap considerably as Vecchi’s article tracks up to 2006 showing the winds slowing down and England 2014 comments on the last 2 decades which must go back to 1993 and says they are speeding up.

Not sure how you’re unable to see these aren’t necessarily contradictory. I’ll try an example outside climate science which will hopefully avoid clouding your judgement. Look at the adjusted data in the top graph on this page. It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s just a random graph providing an illustrative example. The trend from 1915 to 1980 is positive, but the trend from 1965 to 1980 is negative. Both of these are correct statements.

Paul S
“Not sure how you’re unable to see these aren’t necessarily contradictory.”
4 negatives
translated for easier use “Surely you can see these are the same ”
Trade winds are slower due to global warming Vecchi
Trade winds are faster due to global warming England
now tell me again slowly these are the same?????

“I’m pretty sure when Mosher is talking about it ‘all being volcanoes and CO2′ he’s talking about the changes over the past 150-200 years, not the past 10-15 years.”
Yes to the first part, no to the second part.
WHT Joshua is halfway to a skeptic, I still have hopes, but you are going to take a heck of a lot more work [paraphrasing Paul Keating]

It’s not clear what this is supposed to mean, so I’ll make a suggestion which you can confirm or clarify: you think Mosher believes temperature changes over the past 10-15 years can be entirely explained by CO2 and volcanoes.

I’ve realised I’m allowing you to get away with subtly changing the subject here, so don’t waste your time searching for such a quote. The cause of the trade wind trend is not relevant to the effect, and it’s only the effect which matters for explaining recent surface temperature trends, the entire focus of the discussion. The only thing which matters with regard consistency between Vecchi 2006 and England 2014 is that the observed trends in equivalent variables during the period of overlap are about the same, which they are.

angech
Trade winds are slower due to global warming Vecchi
Trade winds are faster due to global warming England
now tell me again slowly these are the same?????
Paul S
The only thing which matters with regard consistency between Vecchi 2006 and England 2014 is that the observed trends in equivalent variables during the period of overlap are about the same, which they are.

Are equivalent variables the same thing as gobbledygook?
I am talking about trade winds not equivalent variables of whom knows what and you suggest I am changing the subject.
When you are wrong, dig a deeper hole.

I upset Mosher and am PNG. I would not dare comment on ” you think Mosher believes temperature changes over the past 10-15 years can be entirely explained by CO2 and volcanoes.”
He has written somewhere recently that CO2 and volcanoes may be enough for the last 150 years. He has CO2 is going up , Global air temp should go up and is spot on. My disagreement is that I can see a host of negative feedback factors Including buffering in the sea and perhaps Spencer’s extra clouds that has meant the temperature rise with the CO2 will be negated.
The natural temperature rise in the last 40 years is what has caused the upswell in CO2. Nature will use the excess CO2 to good effect and the CO2 levels will stop rising soon as the earth cools down for the next 40 years with the usual suspects all converting to Ice Age Alarmists instead

On Adaptation, it is wrong to claim mitigation is either dead and hasn’t done anything yet, and therefore can’t in the future, when it has barely started by now. Fuel and energy efficiency and moving away from coal and oil are mitigation measures that will have an effect. Mitigation can easily make the difference between 700 ppm and 450 ppm, or 5 W/m2 forcing and 2.5 W/m2. This is has major climate consequences, affecting whether we have a factor of two in climate change: 4 degrees or 2 degrees.

Mitigation can easily make the difference between 700 ppm and 450 ppm, or 5 W/m2 forcing and 2.5 W/m2. This is has major climate consequences, affecting whether we have a factor of two in climate change: 4 degrees or 2 degrees.

Huh?

Please list the specific actionable mitigation proposals that will result in a holding CO2 concentrations to 450 ppmv by 2100.

Even if you could do this (which you cannot) the difference between your absurdly exaggerated estimate of 700 ppmv and your even sillier estimate of 450 ppmv CO2 is only around 1.3C difference in warming (i.e. difference between 1.6C and 0.3C warming above today) .

Get real, Jim. Don’t toss absurd figures out there – they only point out how silly your estimates and the whole CAGW hysteria really are.

450 ppm is tough, and I think 500 ppm is more realistic. 450 ppm requires a 20% reduction, based on today’s levels, per decade for 5 decades to zero at 50 years. Like I said, tough, but something like Copenhagen suggested, and Paris could try for. 500 ppm requires 10% per decade for 100 years, more doable. 700 ppm requires continued growth at today’s rate of growth, through 2100. It will reach 700 ppm unless some known fossil fuel resources are left in the ground. These are all possible scenarios within the ranges proposed, and are not so easily dismissed as impossible.

You have not listed any actionable proposals to get there from an otherwise occurring level of 700 ppmv.

And the reason is quite simple. You cannot.

Besides:
700 ppmv for “business as usual” is exaggerated
reduction of 250 ppmv by mitigation actions is even more absurd

So if you want to regain some credibility,

List each actionable mitigation proposal, along with the ppmv of CO2 it will avoid by 2100.

“10% per decade” is NOT an actionable proposal; it is simply a target.

To help you out, I have seen a list of actionable “no regrets” initiatives assembled by the ASME, which (if all implemented as of today) could conceivably reduce CO2 levels in 2100 by around 100 ppmv (NOT 250 ppmv!). The highest impact would come from replacing all future coal-fired plants with either nuclear or natural gas (in those locations where gas is readily available or nuclear is undesirable for proliferation reasons). And even this actionable mitigation proposal would have serious political hurdles to overcome in many parts of the world

Jim, it does not make sense for you to throw out absurd estimates or statements.

manacker, good, you should promote getting rid of all fossil fuel and replace with nuclear and alternatives, with alternatives including storage, fuel efficiency and replacement with electric transportation (good for urban pollution too), energy efficiency, and not oppose them. They will have more effect than you think, and also allow many countries to be independent of fossil fuel imports. When we see the commitments in Paris, we will see what countries think they can do. Maybe they can’t commit to 20% in a decade or 50% by 2050, etc. This will be based on what they think they can do. I can’t predict what they will propose, but at least they have to be encouraged to try and not naysayed into refusal to do anything. Climate change is a motivator to do things, and not to just give up on the future. Aim at 450 ppm, and you may get to 500 ppm. Don’t aim at anything and you will eventually get to 700 ppm whether by 2100 or just a few decades after, same effect no matter how slowly it is reached. It makes a difference to have goals, especially ambitious ones.
Also don’t downplay the potential effect. Based on the last 60 years, you can easily say the trends are consistent with the 3-degree equilibrium sensitivity, while for lower sensitivities you have to invent other warming processes to be named later.

manacker, read the initial remark. The range of possible actions results in 450 ppm to 700+ ppm. 450 is an extreme lower limit requiring a determined global effort (not likely, but possible with motivation based on observed climate change). 500 ppm is not as hard as you may think. 700 ppm easily is less than known reserves. This whole range is possible and depends on decisions made at an early stage. The mitigation policy can make a 2 C difference in final temperature, making it at least as important as adaptation as a part of a plan.

I realize from your above statement that you wish that we could reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration by 250 ppmv by year 2100, holding it to no more than 50 ppmv above today’s concentration, by implementing mitigation actions, which you are however unable to specify.

But this is wishful thinking, rather than a plan of actionable mitigation proposals, Jim.

The ASME list of actionable “no regrets” mitigation proposals (which I cited) could achieve as much as 100 ppmv reduction by 2100, if they were all implemented globally today (not very likely).

And this could achieve a theoretical temperature reduction of around 0.5C. That’s it, Jim. That’s why the lead post concluded that “mitigation is dead”. “Mitigation” isn’t going to make any real difference in our planet’s climate, no matter how much money we throw at it. This is not a “defeatist” attitude, Jim, it’s simply the facts of life.

So, until you can show me some specific actionable mitigation proposals with an estimate of how much CO2 each will eliminate, I will continue to conclude that you are simply spouting off pie-in-the-sky numbers with no real basis.

Mitigation is dead – in the sense of adopting public policies that will reduce global CO2 emissions to any degree below their current levels.

Mitigation is alive and well – in the sense of an excuse for adopting policies of taxation and control of the economy favored by progressives for their own sake.

“Mitigation” will do nothing to change the global average temperature. Just as progressive education policy does nothing to improve the education of millions of children dependent on it. And just as progressive healthcare policy will do nothing to improve the health of those subjected to it.

All three are abysmal failures at achieving their stated goals.

All three are resounding success at increasing the power and scope of government, and the incomes of the progressives who feed at the public trough.

The bottom line on actionable items is leaving fossil fuels in the ground. If we don’t and use all the reserves and even add new sources, we get to 1000 ppm plus, not this century but some time. This is what mitigation means. Stopping short of doing that, and preferably halving that to 500 ppm, which is possible, as I said with 10% decadal reductions over a century, resulting in a limit of 1500 more GtCO2 burned. It’s numbers and targets, like in any business.

The IPCC doesn’t have the foggiest idea, after 30 years and $100Billion spent, what the TCS to CO2 is. The range of uncertainty is essentially as big now as it was in their first report. Plus… using the numbers they use, 97% of the global temperature models are too high. More than half are stupidly, absurdly too high. Just look at the models compared to the data…

The wrongness is obvious to a 5th grader.

Then there’s China. No way will China slow down producing CO2 in the mid-term. They are saving millions of lives, and digging millions of people out of poverty by bringing cheap coal-fired electricity on line. They are producing double the US CO2 output now. Soon China will be producing more CO2 than the whole world did less than 10 years ago.

Would you warmistas propose going to war with China over CO2? Boycott China? Either would be devastating to our economy. Take them to court? (Bwahahahahaha). Let’s see anyone collect on that settlement.

Summary: The game is over. CAGW has been overblown, the sensitivity to CO2 used in the models does not match reality, and there’s no way you’re stopping the “up and coming” producers (China and India) of CO2 anyway.

Adaptation is our only alternative. However, since the MEASURED impacts of CO2 appear to be so mild, this will be far cheaper than mitigation.

This is essentially what I have been trying to convey to Jim D, who still wants to believe that “mitigation” could change our planet’s future climate significantly.

And the real beauty of adaptation to local or regional climate challenges, rather than mitigation today in the vain hope of significantly changing our future global climate, is that it can be implemented locally or regionally, if and when it appears that these climate challenges could become imminent.

Like the lead post concludes: “Mitigation is dead. Long live adaptation.”

China is committed to significantly reducing carbon intensity (CO2/GDP). If they weren’t, and just escalated regardless of climate change, the world would be in a world of trouble, so this is something that has come out of international negotiations and the realization of consequences. You should be thankful that they are willing to do this because it is not an easy path.

I make no bones about the fact that I am determined to stamp out the travesty of physics which is promulgated on warmist and luke warm climate blogs. This comment appears on several of them.

Roy Spencer still cannot prove with any valid physics his crazy postulate that there would be isothermal conditions in Earth’s troposphere in the absence of water vapour and radiating gases. The greenhouse conjecture depends totally upon this garbage “fissics” that would violate the entropy conditions of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. All the models depend totally on this weird idea which is never observed anywhere on any planet or moon, not even on Uranus where the base of the nominal troposphere is hotter than Earth.

Roy only needs to look at the data for the Uranus troposphere to realise that thermal gradients (aka “lapse rates”) evolve spontaneously at the molecular level. Radiating gases reduce the gradient (and thus cool the surface) due to inter-molecular radiation. They help energy escape faster up the troposphere and eventually to space. Radiation that strikes any warmer surface is just pseudo scattered.

There is no need for advection (upward rising gases) or any direct solar radiation or a surface: the lapse rate just forms autonomously as gravity acts on molecules in free flight between collisions.

That is why the (badly named) “lapse rate” on Earth, Venus, Uranus, the outer crust of Earth, the core of the Moon – everywhere – evolves spontaneously in solids, liquids and gases. That is why radiative forcing is not what is the primary determinant of any planet’s atmospheric or surface temperature – gravity is – gravity traps energy.

Water vapour reduces the insulation effect – just consider the problem with moist air in double glazed windows. Moist regions are cooler than dry regions – I have proved that with real world temperature records.

You’ll find the study in my book “Why it’s not carbon dioxide after all” available late April from Amazon etc. and from which I quote …

“The world will one day look back upon a small slice of history that began in the 1980’s and sadly have to conclude that never in the name of science have so many people been so seriously misled by so few for so long. Never have so many careers, so much time and so much money been spent in the pursuit of such a misguided and ineffective goal to reduce human emissions of carbon dioxide, a harmless gas which comprises about one molecule in every two and a half thousand other molecules in the atmosphere of our planet, Earth.”

Speaking at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, Lance said he believes the country’s shale revolution is only in the “first inning of a nine inning game,” and critics shouldn’t assume growing shale production will stop any time soon.

“What we’re learning is we’ve only scratched the surface of what technology can do to improve the outlook over the years,” said Lance, who’s also chairman of the Houston-based oil and gas giant. “This is the layer that can last for quite some time.”
…

Judith, a small comment on the latest in a long line of excuses for the pause.
In a medical setting we have a condition called plantar fasciitis.
It has possibly over 200 cures. Most risible but all with just a hint of why it might work when the others don’t.
One for instance is rolling a golf ball underfoot with the sore foot. There are operations, steroid injections, ultrasound, infrared, physio and chiropracty to name a few.
Sadly none of them work any better than the others other than for the true believers who happened to accidentally get better at the time of their particular treatment.
The only thing that works for nearly everyone is the passage of time.
The parallels to the climate debate are obvious.
There is a saying sort of equivalent to Occam’s razor here, that is, that if a large number of cures exist for any one condition then none of them are valid.
Hence the more explanations one has to have to explain the pause the more likely that none of them are right.
Which would mean I guess that natural climate and temperature fluctuations are the norm and chaotic enough to be beyond the scope of our current understanding, although we can recognize and predict the recurrent patterns of our daily and yearly cycles.
Worse, the more explanations one has to have to explain the pause the more of a “turtles all the way down ‘ mentality one has to develop in reverse as each new argument demolishes the old arguments and sets an even harder benchmark.
I am sure you could work this into a post but unfortunately you will be inundated with people’s medical problems and might miss the important argument being made here.

”
Which would mean I guess that natural climate and temperature fluctuations are the norm and chaotic enough to be beyond the scope of our current understanding, although we can recognize and predict the recurrent patterns of our daily and yearly cycles.
“

“There is a saying sort of equivalent to Occam’s razor here, that is, that if a large number of cures exist for any one condition then none of them are valid.
Hence the more explanations one has to have to explain the pause the more likely that none of them are right.”
——-
This might hold true for simple systems, but not so at all for complex dynamically systems that undergo multiple forcings. If you take ant given year, there are always multiple, and often competing forcings, operating over different timeframes with different strengths. On top of that, you have natural internal variability. Very likely it is that the surface temperatures globally represent the sum of multiple forcings plus natural internal variability.

Thank you for reading the comment and replying
I hope you can use it in your uncertainty discussions.
There are two ideas that need discussion, the fact that each new idea for the pause has to elbow the others out of the way and in so doing the others may still have some value but the value of each idea is lessened.
Reputations are lessened and the more often it happens the more each new idea tarnishes and is tarnished by the fact that all of these concepts had not been put into place in discussions and models when the science was said to be settled.
Each new idea increases the uncertainty rather than diminishing it often said as the more we know the less we know.

Why must a new idea ‘elbow out’ other ideas? I would think that the surfeit of hypotheses regarding the slowdown would give us plenty of fodder for discussion. Moreover, I see no reason why we can accept only one hypothesis; surely the possibility is strong that several processes are at work here. I see no reason why reputations would be tarnished by these new ideas; the idea of progress is intrinsic to science. Lastly, you seem confused about the meaning of the phrase about the science being settled. I very much doubt that any scientist meant that there was no need for further research; my impression is that the phrase could better be expanded as “we have enough confidence in the basic science to justify moving on to a discussion of policy options to respond to the threat of climate change.”

Joshua | March 3, 2014 at 9:15 pm angech – What mechanism is it that you think has “paused?”
The rise in recorded temperatures at earth surface and sea level has paused for the past 17 years [1 study]. Others nearly as long.
I did not mention a mechanism that has paused but am interested that you feel it might be a mechanism?
The cause for the pause may be
accidental all the hot air sank into the sea.
incidental it will go up again, or down
occidental only happens on western world thermometers
conspiratorial don’t let them know
or enemy action.
The mechanism has to involve the heat from the sun which has only to change a trivial amount in a trivial [for the sun] time to cause vast changes here and the way in which the heat is distributed as it re radiates which it must and the variances in orbits and inclinations.
Volcanoes, asteroids and internal earth heat play a minute , mainly irrelevant part.
The earth’s atmosphere’s temperature has gone one way then the other at a slow enough rate for life to have survived a billion years or more without life freezing or roasting to none existence.

“It derails completely the enemy’s position that our side consists of people…”

Is this a war? Is it really a matter of “our side” versus “the enemy”? If so, then it falls outside the ken of intellectual analysis and is a simpler matter of political conflict. Such conflicts are fought with propaganda, not information. The adversaries are warriors, not thinkers. Their goal is advantage, not truth.

I do not accept the arguments of Ms. Curry and her colleagues, but I make a delicate distinction between the mere ideologues (of which there are many) and those arguments that have merit. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to discuss tricky scientific issues, but I have zero tolerance for the subjugation of truth to political preference. We should first determine the truth of the situation as best we can, THEN decide what we should do about the situation. Far too many of Ms. Curry’s compatriots reverse the process, attempting to warp the truth to fit their political preferences. They are not motivated by honest curiosity — they are motivated by their political beliefs.

I would therefore offer the following questions to Ms. Curry and others who share her beliefs: are you certain that your political beliefs are not influencing your intellectual judgement? Is there ANY evidence that would convince you to change your mind and endorse the basic principles behind AGW? If so, what is the magnitude of the evidence you require? Would you be convinced by nothing less than the clouds parting, mighty beams of light shining down on your favorite monument, and, amid the holy singing of a choir of angels, a deep voice intoning “AGW is correct!!!” ?

Lastly, the most important question: are you a seeker of truth or an advocate of ideology?

I doubt it. I strongly suspect you see things in those terms, and are just trying to pull the wool over your enemies’ eyes.

Is this a war? Is it really a matter of “our side” versus “the enemy”?

Yes. The use of the word “deniers” constitutes “demonizing the enemy”. One doesn’t (need to) demonize opposing disputants in a scientific argument.

If so, then it falls outside the ken of intellectual analysis and is a simpler matter of political conflict. Such conflicts are fought with propaganda, not information.

And your comment here is propaganda as demonstrated below.

I would therefore offer the following questions to Ms. Curry and others who share her beliefs: are you certain that your political beliefs are not influencing your intellectual judgement? Is there ANY evidence that would convince you to change your mind and endorse the basic principles behind AGW?

Professor (“Ms.”) Curry has always accepted the principles of AGW (Anthropogenic Climate Change) as a scientific hypothesis, subject to principles of scientific uncertainty. Your propaganda effort here is to attempt to conflate it with CAGW (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change), which is a different animal. The fact that you are using propaganda demonstrates that for You“it falls outside the ken of intellectual analysis and is a simpler matter of political conflict.”

Lastly, the most important question: are you a seeker of truth or an advocate of ideology?

Well, you’re definitely a warrior in all this. You treat an honest, non-confrontational comment as the work of “the enemy”. Some reactions:

You object to the term “denier”. Sorry, but I don’t do political correctness. I use the term that best communicates. “Climage change skeptic” does apply to some, but most of the people I have encountered are not genuinely skeptical; they have already made up their minds. And BTW, I still call small wire-cutters “dykes”, and I still use masculine pronouns as substitutes for undefined gender persons.

You also object to my use of the honorific “Ms.” In this, I am following the practice of The Economist news magazine. The problem with using any other honorific is that consistency requires such use to be universal, which in turn would require one to refer to “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution of Libya, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council of Libya, Secretary General of the General People’s Congress, Prime Minister of Libya Muammar Gaddafi” and “Supreme Leader of North Korea, First Secretary of the Worker’s Party of Korea, Supreme Commander of the Korean People’s Army, Chairman of the Central Military Commission Kim Jong-Un”. These are the official titles of the individuals. Inasmuch as I refuse to engage in all such diplomatic games, I instead refer to everybody with the honorifics “Mr.” and “Ms.”, e.g., Mr. Obama, Mr. bin Laden, Mr Kim Jong-Un, Ms Obama, Ms Thatcher.

You accuse me of attempting to promote what you call CAGW. That is speculation on your part; I recognize my own lack of expertise on climate science so I defer to IPCC AR5. If you believe that your expertise exceeds that of the authors of AR5, then perhaps you could identify any significant mistakes in that document. After all, if you cannot identify any significant mistakes, you are logically compelled to accept that it is true, are you not?

I am given to believe that Ms. Curry has objected to the process by which AR5 was written but has not questioned the truth of its contents. I may well be mistaken here. Can anybody correct me if I am wrong?

Mr. Manacker, can you be any more specific? That is, can you specify any place where Ms. Curry objects to the content of AR5? I am currently studying her APS presentation and I am impressed, but so far it appears that her only objections are subjective matters of confidence. Is there anything more substantial in her objections?

sinchiroca you write “Is there anything more substantial in her objections?”

Let me try. CAGW is a very viable hypothesis. There are all sorts of hypothetical reasons why it MIGHT be true. These are very well presented by the IPCC. However, there is no direct, empirical evidence to show that as you add more and more CO2 to the atmosphere from recent levels, this affects global temperatures in any substantial way. There is no measured CO2 signal in any modern temperature/time graph.

Now the IPCC states that important things about CAGW are extremely likely to be true, meaning a 95% probability that they are correct. This is my most important objection to the AR5, and it is what out hostess objects to, as expressed in her “uncertainty monster”. She, and skeptics like myself, object to the IPCC telling our politicians that the IPCC is almost certain that CAGW is correct. It MIGHT be correct, but that is as far as the physics ought to go.

For the record Max’s name is Max Anaker. He merely signs himself in as Manaker.

‘… the paleorecord clearly demonstrates that the Earth’s climate
system is far from self stabilizing. Rather, it has undergone large responses to seemingly small forcings. Not only have major changes occurred, but some of the largest have taken place on the time scale of a few decades. Further, the magnitude of these shifts is far greater than expected from any known forcing (i.e., fluctuations in solar output, variable interception of sunlight by dust and aerosols, changes in seasonality resulting from variations in the Earth’s orbital parameters…). Thus I am driven to the conclusion that the Earth’s climate system has several distinct modes of operation.’ http://www.astro.ulg.ac.be/~mouchet/OCEA0033-1/GlacialWorldAcctoWally-sm.pdf

Thanks for your explanation, Mr. Cripwell. First, however, I request that you refrain from using the undefined term “CAGW”. I do not believe that the IPCC ever uses that phrase, and since AR5 is the focus of this subdiscussion, I suggest that we hew to the strict terminology it uses. Unfortunately, the document I am studying just now (the slides for her report to the APS) presents only skeletal phrasings of her position, so it is impossible for us to nail down any specifics there. Perhaps you can cite another document from her in which she makes a specific objection to a specific statement in AR5.

You appear to confirm my earlier impression that Ms. Curry’s objections are to the statements of confidence in the document, not to the direct scientific content. On this point, I agree that there is plenty of latitude for disagreement, because ultimately these are matters of scientific judgement, and therefore profoundly subjective. I will not gainsay Ms. Curry’s subjective judgements, nor yours, but that doesn’t mean that I accept or acquiesce to them. Although I have a solid background in the physics, have read the entire AR5, (and even understood much of it ;-) ) I tend to defer to the judgement of those who are better versed in the subject. AR5 represents the collective judgement of a large number of such better-versed people; I think it deserves considerable credence.

My impression — so far — is that Ms. Curry’s scientific statements are all quite reasonable. She has done a good job of zeroing in on the weakest areas of the science of climate change. I strongly disagree with her suggestion that unknown solar factors have been given short shrift, as she has not presented any mechanism by which such factors could impose a strong enough effect in earth’s climate to explain the observations. There are several scientists exploring this angle and so far nothing they have published convinces me, and they certainly have not convinced the IPCC authors.

Nevertheless, I’m eager to see more work in the areas Ms. Curry identifies (vertical ocean mixing is another important one about which we need more information), and will be happy to revise my personal judgements if convincing evidence arises.

This is not a term which Cripwell coined. It is a well established term.

It simply refers to the premise as outlined specifically by IPCC in its AR4 report, and to a slightly watered down degree in its AR5 report of a potentially serious threat to humanity and our environment from AGW, caused principally by human CO2 emissions.

As specifically expressed by IPCC, “CAGW” is the premise that:

1. human GHGs have been the cause of most of the observed warming since ~1950 [AR4 WGI SPM, p.10]
2. this reflects a model-predicted 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3.2°C±0.7°C [AR4 WGI Ch.8, p.633]
3. this represents a serious potential threat to humanity and our environment from anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the range of 1.8°C to 6.4°C by the end of this century with increase in global sea level of up to 0.59 meters [AR4 WGI SPM, p.13]
4. resulting in increased severity and/or intensity of heat waves, heavy precipitation events, droughts, tropical cyclones and extreme high sea levels [AR4 WGI SPM, p.8],
5. with resulting flooding of several coastal cities and regions, crop failures and famines, loss of drinking water for millions from disappearing glaciers, intensification and expansion of wildfires, severe loss of Amazon forests, decline of corals, extinction of fish species, increase in malnutrition, increase in vector borne and diarrheal diseases, etc. [AR4 WGII]
6. unless world-wide actions are undertaken to dramatically curtail human GHG emissions (principally CO2) [AR4 WGIII]

In AR5 IPCC has reduced the mean 2xCO2 sensitivity estimate from 3.2 to 3.0C, has reduced “worst case” warming by the end of the century by a smidgen, increased projected SL rise to 0.82 meters, and backed off a bit on the attribution of extreme weather events to AGW, but otherwise its definition of “CAGW” remains pretty much the same as in AR4.

Mr. Anaker, you write:
“As specifically expressed by IPCC, “CAGW” is the premise that:”
This is a falsehood. As far as I know, IPCC never defined the term “CAGW”. I have seen it used in different ways by different people. Most seem to treat it as an acronym meaning “catastrophic anthropogenic global warming”, as distinct from the normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill “anthropogenic global warming”. So although the term is used often, it is vague enough to permit misinterpretations. I appreciate your attempt to define it in terms of the IPCC reports, but I shall not take your definition as representative of what other people believe. However, it does provide us with an excellent basis for further discussion.

However, I must object to your reliance on WG2 and WG3, as these are not part of the scientific report and are not considered to be anywhere near as reliable as WG1.

Otherwise, I find your definition to offer a fair and reasonable summary of the most important components of AR5. It is more conservative than what I have seen from others, but again, that’s their definition, not yours. So let’s proceed on that basis.

I appreciate your summary of Ms. Curry’s position as presented in her Congressional testimony. I dismiss her claim that the magnitude of the theory is highly uncertain, because it is uselessly vague and technically incorrect. Theories don’t have magnitudes. Variables have magnitude.

Otherwise, I fully agree with her statements, although they can be interpreted in ways that some here might find objectionable. For example, her statement that “The threat from global climate change does not seem to be an existential one on the time scale of the 21st century even in its most alarming incarnation.” is entirely consistent with the statements that such change will be an existential threat after the 21st century, and that such change will impose costs amounting to trillions of dollars per year later in this century — both of which statements are likely, IMO.

Her statement on the relative danger of climate change is also limited to “a time scale of decades”. So what about longer time scales? I agree that the dangers of climate change are not too serious in the next 50 years. But the further we move into the future, the greater the likely danger, as well as the greater the amount of uncertainty.

I see no serious discrepancy between Ms. Curry’s statements and those in AR5.

Mr. Cripwell, you write “You are prepared to swallow hook, line and sinker, the hypothesis of CAGW for which there is NO empirical data whatsoever to support it”
That statement is so far from the realm of truth that I can only suggest that you read AR5, which presents mountains of empirical data. Perhaps you are using a definition other than that of Mr. Anacker.

Lastly, Ms. Cooper, am I correct in concluding that you are a warrior rather than an investigator, in the sense that I used in my earlier comment?

Believe Jim Cripwell has responded to your question on where our hostess has taken issue with the AR5 (and earlier AR4) report of IPCC.

The IPCC handling of (or ignoring/underplaying) “uncertainty” is certainly a major part of this, as I have read her statements.

But a clue to the divergence of her stand from that of the CAGW premise, as outlined in detail by IPCC in its reports, can be seen in her testimony before the Baird congressional committee back in 2008, which is essenme as her more recent testimony and statements. Let me quote some pertinent excepts:

Anthropogenic climate change is a theory whose basic mechanism is well understood, but whose magnitude is highly uncertain.

The threat from global climate change does not seem to be an existential one on the time scale of the 21st century even in its most alarming incarnation.

Anthropogenic climate change on time scales of decades is arguably less important in driving vulnerability than increasing population, land use practices and ecosystem degradation.

It seems more important that robust policy responses be formulated rather than to respond urgently with policies that may fail to address the problem and whose unintended consequences have not been adequately explored.

I suggest you compare these statements with the specific points I quoted from the IPCC “CAGW” premise. The divergence will become apparent.

sinchiroca you write “Nevertheless, I’m eager to see more work in the areas Ms. Curry identifies (vertical ocean mixing is another important one about which we need more information), and will be happy to revise my personal judgements if convincing evidence arises.”

You are prepared to swallow hook, line and sinker, the hypothesis of CAGW for which there is NO empirical data whatsoever to support it, but you are prepared to revise your ideas if “convincing evidence arises”. So your mind is made up on the basis of no empirical evidence at all, but you will change it if you get some evidence. The mind boggles.

Ms. Cooper may wish to explain her role here in more detail, herself, but I would call her “a keen observer with a logical approach, a rationally skeptical mindset and a poetic flair”, rather than an investigative nerd, a troll, or a purveyor of (or questioner of) the “consensus” sales pitch (all of which we have here on this site).

OK, Mr. Anacker, we can use whatever terminology you wish, but please don’t attempt insinuations from semantic gyrations. I’ll use your term ‘CAGW’ not as an acronym for anything, but rather as a label for the set of premises that you present. I suggest that we pronounce it ‘kag wuh’.

I definitely object to your attempt to lump WG1, WG2, and WG3 into a single premise. IPCC separated those documents for clear reasons that you are ignoring. WG1 is a conservative document presenting the science as best known at the time. WG2 and WG3 are about possible consequences and potential policy responses. Those are different subjects.

We can discuss possible consequences, if you wish, and we can discuss policy responses. But is is unwise to mash everything together. In policymaking, the first step is to determine the situation as best we can; the second step is to decide what we want to do about the situation. We can be more precise by adding an intermediate step examining the possible consequences of the situation, which is what IPCC did. To mash them back together again is obfuscatory.

In any case, if you insist upon mashing WG1, WG2, and WG3 into a single premise, then I can dismiss this monster you call CAGW as unrepresentative of the science of climate change.

IPCC is (or once was) considered the “gold standard” source for information about anthropogenic influence on our climate, including the effects of anthropogenic climate change (on sea levels, extreme weather events, etc.) and their impacts on humanity and our environment (flooding, droughts, crop failures, diseases, etc.)

It’s a package, sinchiroca.

Like the old song goes, “Ya can’t have one without the oooother”.

It’s all part of the premise of a potentially serious threat to humanity and our environment resulting from human GHG emissions. That’s the story being “pitched” in the IPCC reports. It has become known as “CAGW” for short.

Sorry if you don’t like parts of that story (I don’t either). But it stands as an integral story, put out by one organization (the IPCC) in order to influence “policy makers”.

Mr. Anacker, you insist that WG1, WG2, and WG3 must be considered as a unit. Tell me, if this be so, then why did they separate them in the first place? Why did they declare different goals for each of the documents? Why did they assemble different teams for the different documents? Do you think that it was perhaps because they were different?

Yes, there are three threads: one for the science, one for the possible consequences, and one for policy options. So if you want to learn about the science of climate change, which one should you read? If you want to learn about the possible consequences, which one should you read? If you want to learn about policy options, which one should you read?

Um, perhaps you should get the facts straight first. If you follow the link to a news site, then follow their link to the source, you will find that the paper is dated March 13th, 2013 — nearly a year ago. And that page clearly states the following:
“A refereed and revised version of this paper is in American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Forthcoming ”
Thus, this paper has not been approved for publication; after a year it is *still* caught up in the referee process. Apparently the referees have some objections to the paper that have held up publication.
This is therefore a “working paper” — a couple of guys floating an idea. If you took the time to actually read their paper, you’ll find that their actual content involves a rather complicated model. Moreover, they present this as a two-sided issue: they present the advantages AND disadvantages of deliberate misinformation.

If you really want to make some hay out of this paper, then I suggest that you consult the many statements made in comment sections on the Internet; you may well find other questionable statements by people of many different beliefs.

OT but interesting, from BBC News online: New research suggests a strong link between the powerful smell of pine trees and climate change. Scientists say they’ve found a mechanism by which these scented vapours turn into aerosols above boreal forests. These particles promote cooling by reflecting sunlight back into space and helping clouds to form. The research, published in the journal Nature, fills in a major gap in our understanding, researchers say. …

“In a warmer world, photosynthesis will become faster with rising CO2, which will lead to more vegetation and more emissions of these vapours,” said lead author, Dr Mikael Ehn, now based at the University of Helsinki. “This should produce more cloud droplets and this should then have a cooling impact, it should be a damping effect.”

Yes, the climate system is complicated; there are many feedback mechanisms, both positive and negative. So far the research shows that the positive feedback mechanisms exceed the negative feedback mechanisms in magnitude.

From the article:
OAO Gazprom (OGZD)’s threat to end natural gas discounts for Ukraine adds to the financial burden on the near-bankrupt government in Kiev and makes Europe’s energy supply part of the escalating crisis.

Russia’s gas-export monopoly said on March 1 it may end last year’s agreement to supply Ukraine at a cheaper rate unless it’s paid $1.55 billion owed for fuel. It’s the first time since the otherthrow of pro-Moscow president Viktor Yanukovych last month that Russia has directly used its position as Ukraine’s dominant energy supplier to pressure the new regime.

Vladimir Putin, who has permission from lawmakers to deploy troops to Ukraine, has repeatedly used gas to strong-arm his western neighbor, cutting off supplies twice since 2006 over payment disputes. Because Ukraine hosts a network of Soviet-era pipelines that carry more than half of Russia’s gas exports to the European Union, any disruption of supply puts the region’s energy security at risk.

More …
But Suttle points out that people already inhale thousands of viruses every day, and swallow billions whenever they swim in the sea. The idea that melting ice would release harmful viruses, and that those viruses would circulate extensively enough to affect human health, “stretches scientific rationality to the breaking point”, he says. “I would be much more concerned about the hundreds of millions of people who will be displaced by rising sea levels.”